


Magic and Mass Effect

by MalecCrazedAuthor



Category: Mass Effect, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Magnus and the Shadowhunters gang get involved, Multi, Temporary Character Death, spoilers through current Shadowhunters Season 2 episodes, the Reapers are demonic constructs okay?, timeframe: starts just before Mass Effect 3, title may be subject to change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-09-25 11:35:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9818612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalecCrazedAuthor/pseuds/MalecCrazedAuthor
Summary: Nearly a hundred and fifty years after Earth was sealed against any further demonic incursions and everyone Magnus Bane knows has died, the Shadow Broker approaches him for information. The answers he reveals are nothing like what she imagined, and yet he unintentionally offers her the most helpful piece of information they've received on the nature of the Reapers.Now Liara and Commander Shepard will need his help finding a way to neutralize the Reaper threat, and Magnus will need some help from the people who once fought by his side.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The premise of this story must, by necessity, diverge from canon. In particular, it won't be the Crucible that neutralizes the Reaper threat, or at least not the way it did in the game. The events of the Leviathan DLC are also disregarded and/or heavily re-conceptualized. Supplemental canon sources such as graphic novels, etc, won't be used as I'm not familiar with the material.
> 
> Shadowhunters canon is cherry-picked from both books and TV show, whichever works better for my purposes.
> 
> There will likely be a lot of exposition regarding game canon, as I imagine some readers are viewers of the show but haven't played the games, and there's a lot more "backstory" to catch up with on the game side than on the show side. If you wish to catch up on game canon, I am posting videos of a play-through for my Shepard [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_yPxIwVV-EPJbjzvMVs8XnrxJsUk7vSc).
> 
> Those of you who are familiar with game canon may also watch, of course, though it's a fairly vanilla paragade version of Shepard. I half-ass the combat and cheat like a mofo using trainers and hacks and savegame editing, since I was mostly just focused on documenting the story.
> 
> Characters, relationships, and tags will be added as they become necessary to avoid spoilers.
> 
> This work is unbeta'ed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Shadow Broker seeks information from a mysterious club owner on the Citadel.

Magnus subtly shifted the shadows around his little corner of the Limbo Lounge on Silversun Strip to disguise the fact that his martini glass was refilling itself. It was a little less discreet than he tended to be in public, but business was slow at this time of the Citadel’s day/night cycle, and he didn’t feel like summoning one of the cocktail waitresses for another drink.

Around him, a few couples flirted in isolated corners, including one turian/quarian pair who seemed intent upon recreating key scenes from _Fleet and Flotilla_. A handful of human regulars were leaning rather too heavily on the bar for so early in the day and Magnus made a note to himself to have a discussion with his salarian bartender about how strongly she was mixing the drinks. The only being in the lounge who stood out as unusual today was a studious asari alone at a small cocktail table, her attention focused on a number of tablets she kept switching between.

She’d come to the wrong place if she was trying to work. It was true the mood in Limbo wasn’t as raucous and uninhibited as Purgatory, but Magnus still liked his music loud and his atmosphere energetic. He could think of a handful of cafes throughout the wards and even on the Presidium--several of which he held silent ownership of, just like Purgatory--where the asari might get more accomplished. And yet she’d chosen Limbo.

Which meant she was here for a reason.

Casually sipping his martini, Magnus set aside the tablet on which he was going over his bookkeeper’s report and studied her more closely. The blue of her skin was lighter than, say, Catarina’s had been, and she had a charming splatter of dusky freckles across his face. She was young for an asari. Still in the maiden stage of her life, though with some of a matron’s sobriety. Old enough that she shouldn’t be a student any longer. Clearly she was neither a dancer nor a mercenary. Simon Lewis might once have described her as a cinnamon roll, at least at first glance. Indeed, she reminded Magnus a great deal of Clary Fairchild, her outer sweetness masking a formidable amount of power.

He could think of only one reason she might have business in his lounge, and it irritated him enough to bring him sweeping to his feet and strolling across the empty lounge to her table, pausing only long enough to conjure a sound-nullifying bubble around them to ensure their privacy.

“I thought I made my position on your employer’s invitation quite clear,” he said without preamble.

“You did.” The asari didn’t glance up from her table, even when the driving beat of the music was cut abruptly off by his sound field. She merely reached without looking for the glass of juice at her left hand. “Your exact words were ‘if the Shadow Broker wishes to speak with me, they can come themselves.’” Finally she looked up, peering at Magnus over the rim of her glass. “So here I am.”

There was the slightest twinkle in her eye, and Magnus found himself smiling in response. “Well played, my dear.” He extended his hand. “Magnus Bane, at your service. And you are…?”

“Dr. Liara T’Soni.” Unlike many asari, she accepted the handshake readily enough to make it clear she was familiar with humans. Charmed, Magnus lifted her hand and dropped a courtly kiss on the back of it, which made her smile, though she remained on-message. “If it’s all the same, I’d rather you not inform anyone else of the link between my two identities. I’m sure you understand all about that sort of discretion, don’t you, Mr. Bane?”

“Magnus, please. I suppose this is the part where I should protest that I’m simply a humble entrepreneur operating a few clubs and cafes on the Citadel and that I couldn’t possibly know what you mean and so on and so forth.” He waved the notion away with a fluid flick of his hand as he folded into the chair across from her. “Too cliche. Let’s dispense with that and skip to the part where you tell me what you’ve learned about me and why I should concern myself with it.”

“I don’t know as much as you may be assuming.” Dr. T’Soni leaned back in her chair, sipping her juice again. “You’ve been thorough in deleting or altering any records about you, personally. So thorough, in fact, that no one can even figure out how you hacked them. However, you’ve been somewhat less diligent in removing records about your various business concerns. The ones here on the Citadel are easy enough to trace. As well as your inquiry into acquiring a share in Afterlife on Omega--”

He sighed. “It’s a pity Ms. T’Loak didn’t want a silent partner. I did so like the name.”

“Let’s see. There’s also Aaru on Arcturus Station--you would have been quite young to be starting a business like that if your official documentation is anything to go by, though not inconceivably so. But Styx on Luna opened before you were even born--again, according to your records, which of course are falsified.”

She swapped her glass for a tablet and flicked across several screens. It was obviously a prop; she had her speech rehearsed well in advance, but Magnus could appreciate the theatricality of it. “Asphodel in Vancouver, Valhalla in San Francisco, Hel in Sydney, Summerland in Glasgow, Pandemonium in Brooklyn, and so forth. Beyond that it gets a little harder to track down records, since they predate the advent of computer technology on Earth. Still.” She set the tablet down and met his eyes. “A series of establishments with commonly themed names stretching back for at least two centuries, and all of them can be traced--through a number of fronts and blind holdings, of course--to a single proprietor: Magnus Bane.”

He smirked. “It could be a family name. It’s not, but it could be.”

“Humans don’t live for multiple centuries, Mr. Ba-- _Magnus_. Not even with all the recent advances in human medicine and biological and genetic engineering since the discovery of the Prothean archives on Mars.”

“It’s true, they don’t.” He ignored the question implicit in her observation. “And what else have your considerable resources revealed?”

“You haven’t stayed in one place for very long since the mid 21st century on earth.” Her eyes grew soft. “It appears after however many years of a somewhat rootless existence, you settled down for roughly a century in New York. And then you returned to roaming.”

What was this? The olive in his martini dared to have a flaw. He narrowed his eyes at it. Yes, there it was. A slight imperfection in the skin was clearly visible through its gin-and-vermouth bath. Unacceptable. Magnus swapped it out with a thought and then scrutinized its replacement for similar shortcomings.

“Closer to a century and a half,” he finally said when he could delay answering no longer. “Aside from my position in New York, I had friends.” He took a long swallow and blamed the alcohol for the roughness of his voice when he added, “And, for a while, family.”

Her eyes softened. “We asari are well aware of the difficulties in coming to care for people whose lifespans are shorter than our own,” she said gently. “Which does, however, bring me back to the questions I was getting to. What species are you? How have you disguised yourself so convincingly as a human? How did you come to dwell among them for so long?”

“That, my dear, is a story which may strain credulity, and is probably best told somewhere more private.” He rose and extended a hand to her with a flourish. “Shall we retire to my apartment? Your drell friend keeping an eye on me from the shadows over there is welcome to join us, if you feel you need protection.”

Dr. T’Soni blinked, glancing over at the drell in question, and then smiled. “I think I’ll tell Feron to deal with the other meetings we have scheduled for today.” As she accepted his hand, a ripple of blue biotic energy illuminated her skin for a moment and then faded. “I can take care of myself.”

Magnus dropped his glamor with a blink, letting her see the glowing cat eyes he kept disguised, and then with another blink concealed them again. “Of that I have no doubt. This way, Dr. T’Soni.”

* * *

Try as he might, Magnus could never decorate his apartment on the Citadel in a way that matched the cozy yet elegant, industrial-chic ambiance of the loft he’d once inhabited in Brooklyn. He blamed the Keepers, the Citadel’s enigmatic semi-indigenous custodians. Something about them interfered with his magic when he tried to make architectural alterations to the station, however slight, and so the room dimensions came out all wrong. He could hire contractors to make the changes manually, but he’d been advised against it, as the Keepers were quite likely to undo whatever work had been done and if that was the case, the work wasn’t warranteed.

“You collect relics,” Dr. T’Soni observed, eyeing a display in a glass case before approaching to study it more closely. “Some of these are Prothean.”

“Deemed to be of no technological, historical, or educational value and thus completely legal for private collectors,” he assured her. “Wine, doctor? I have a wonderful pinot noir from Terra Nova.”

“Liara, please, and that would be lovely.” She crouched down to examine the display case more closely. “I’m aware of their legality. What astonishes me is what such a collection must have cost you. I’m an archaeologist, or I was, before I became an information broker. I’ve studied the Protheans extensively.”

She rose to face him and then gasped as, with a snap of his fingers, he made the wine glass materialize in her hand. He summoned one for himself and strolled casually to the sofa.

“Please, make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you.” Her blue skin got just a shade paler with the wine trick, and she moved a little gingerly as she took an armchair across from him, staring at the glass of wine as if it might bite her. “Being a biotic, I’m quite familiar with telekinesis but I’ve never seen it done so rapidly that the item being moved seemed to materialize out of thin air.”

“Telekinesis? I suppose you could call it that, if instantaneously transferring the wine from the bottle to the glass and the glass from the cupboard to your hand counts as telekinesis.” He shrugged. “I’m more inclined to refer to it as conjuring, but that term might be a bit too mystical for these very empirical times.”

“You’re speaking of--what, _magic_?”

Magnus gave her a complacent nod. “Is that so outlandish?”

“Well, you did warn me your answers would strain credulity.” Liara frowned, and covered it by taking a cautious sip of the wine. “This is very good.”

“I’m glad you like it. And yes, I am speaking of magic. Specifically, the power I possess as a warlock.” He let the glamor on his eyes drop again, and didn’t bother to renew it. “I suppose you might call me an interspecies hybrid.”

“What species?”

“Demon, doctor.”

Liara choked on the wine she’d been sipping. “ _Demon_?”

“Indeed.”

She coughed for a moment, then frowned again. “You’re referring to ancient earth mythology?”

“I’m sure you’re aware that the mythologies of most cultures have their roots in some form of truth. They simply become warped and fantastic in the retelling of the tale.” Liara nodded slowly and Magnus lifted his hand in a _there you have it_ gesture. “Well, then. Long story short, demons--or as you might refer to them, malevolent, supernatural entities from a parallel dimension we’ll call ‘hell’ for lack of a better shorthand--were once able to travel trans-dimensionally to Earth. They would occasionally impregnate humans, creating immortal, magic-wielding beings called warlocks. Such as yours truly.” He tapped his own chest. “A little more than a century and a half ago, the points where demons could cross between dimensions were permanently sealed. In the process--and the conflict that led up to it--a great many of the beings imbued with various forms of demonic energy were killed. Of those who survived, the mortals eventually died out, leaving only a few of us who are immortal behind. The shadow world has effectively ceased to exist.”

“‘Shadow world?’” Liara leaned forward and set her wine aside. Her hands twitched as though she wished she had something to take notes with.

“The term worked at the time.” Magnus sighed as rose, restlessness driving him across the room where near the Prothean relics Liara had noticed, he also had displayed earth antiquities both mundane and magical. “Most of humanity--the portion lacking any sort of supernatural heritage or ability--was unaware of the existence of the supernatural population aside from, as you said, myths and legends. Demons, warlocks, vampires, werewolves, faeries, nephilim and so forth were nothing more than stories.”

He fell silent a moment. With a fingertip, he traced the rune-etched bow hanging on the wall over the display case, and then the gently spiraled handle of a stele resting on a velvet cushion. Finally he stroked the glass front of a shadowbox in which hung several unremarkable-looking amulets, each one etched with a simple design. An arrow. A serpentine whip. A sword. A paintbrush. An icosahedral die. A howling wolf’s head.

“We existed in the world of humanity but were not often a part of it. Indeed, many of the fair folk and some of the shadowhunters kept to themselves so much that they often had little idea what was happening in the human world.” He turned away from his artifacts with a shrug. “The rest of us mingled a bit more, but exercised discretion. It was easier that way. We adhered to a code of law designed to keep our natures hidden, to avoid creating a panic or fomenting conflict with the mundanes.”

Liara stared thoughtfully at her empty hands for a long moment. “I’m having trouble believing you. I’m sorry if that sounds ungracious, since I came to you demanding explanations, but you _are_ speaking of magic and supernatural beings.”

“Is it so difficult to accept?” Magnus returned to the sofa and perched, propping his hip on the arm of it. He swept his hand up and down in Liara’s direction, encompassing her entire self with the gesture. “You’re asari. You possess biotics, the ability to actually generate physical forces from mental energy. You come by it congenitally as a result of high concentrations of element zero on your homeworld. You also have other innate gifts, namely telepathy and certain extrasensory abilities. Until just a few decades ago, humans would have considered telekinesis and ESP to be the very definition of ‘supernatural’. For you, however, it’s merely the influence of environment and genetics.” He spread his arms in an expansive shrug. “I’m no different. Perhaps you might have an easier time crediting my tale if you substituted _demon_ with _alien_.”

He gave her a few moments to assimilate that notion, after which she nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right. Had you used different terminology, I wouldn’t question any of your claims.”

“It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?” She nodded again, and then it was Magnus’s turn to frown. “Now I must ask--why seek me out? Yes, my longevity is a curiosity considering I masquerade as human, but that’s hardly something the Shadow Broker, who--if rumor is to be believed--can raise and topple governments with a few well-placed words, would concern herself with.”

She ducked her head and her cheeks turned a darker shade of blue. “I had thought you might be a displaced remnant of some extinct species who traveled the galaxy long ago, before we discovered the Citadel or formed the Council. If you were, I imagined it might be possible that you would possess knowledge, records, or even just legends that might provide more information about the events surrounding the Prothean extinction.”

Stunned into silence, he stared a long moment. Then laughter--the sort of genuine merriment he felt all too rarely these days--overtook him, until he was wiping his eyes, trying to salvage his makeup.

“No,I’m sorry.” He subsided with a final few chuckles. “I’m not quite _that_ old.”

Liara’s blush deepened. “It’s stupid, I know that now. I’m grasping at straws, trying to find anyone or anything that might--” She broke off and looked away, pushing herself to her feet. “Never mind. I should get back to--”

Magnus slid off the arm of the sofa and held out a hand to forestall her exit. “One thing, please, before you go, Shadow Broker. I believe in your line of work, information is often purchased with information, is it not?”

Her face grew still, and her eyes cautious. “It is.”

“Then, since I indulged your curiosity, I wonder if you might be willing to indulge mine. I have a relic I need to know more about.”

“I’ll do my best.” She nodded once, and followed Magnus’s gesture toward another room. The room was empty, except for a low plinth in the center, surrounding a chunk of twisted alloy. It shone oily black in the low lighting, and the magical field Magnus had placed around it created a shimmering effect.

“Now you see why I needed _you_ to come to _me_ ,” he explained. “It would have been an enormous inconvenience to try to transport this.”

“That’s a fragment of _Sovereign_ ,” Liara said tightly, her spine and shoulders rigid.

“Yes. The enormous vessel that aided the geth attack on the Citadel two years ago.” He shrugged. “I didn’t live here at the time, but once I came into possession of this, I thought it would be prudent to relocate and see what I could discover about it.”

“Clean-up crews were never able to account for all of it. It was too huge, and there as too much scavenging after the attack.” She stayed where she was, near the door, eyeing the artifact as if it might attack her. “You purchased it on the black market?”

“It was expensive, but considering the demonic energy it was emitting, I thought it would be safer in my hands than in those of whatever curiosities collector the seller would have swindled. I need to know what it is, where it came from.”

“ _Demonic_ energy?” She turned huge, startled eyes on him. “If that’s true, you know more about this than I do, and until a moment ago I considered myself one of the few people in the galaxy who knew anything about it at all. I’ll tell you what I can, but I’m going to need you to tell me everything you know as well. You have it well shielded?”

“Yes, far more effectively than the kinetic barriers being used to shielding other pieces of the ship.” Magnus frowned at the chunk of shrapnel. “So I was correct in surmising that the Citadel Council’s claims that _Sovereign_ was a highly advanced geth warship are fictitious. I examined some of the geth remains and there’s nothing demonic about them. I’ve seen artificial constructs animated with demonic power before, but nothing on this scale. What is it?”

Liara shuddered and folded her arms across her chest. “Being near it makes me uneasy. Let’s talk in the other room.”

Magnus nodded, closing the door behind him as they returned to the living room. Liara picked up her wine glass with a shaking hand and drained it, then held it out for a refill, which Magnus provided with a snap of his fingers. Only when that glass was empty as well did she look at him, her huge blue eyes bleak.

“They’re called Reapers. They’re massive, artificially intelligent constructs with power on a magnitude we can’t even begin to grasp, much less counter. _Sovereign_ was one. The first. It was supposed to clear the way for the others to invade. We don’t know how many more there are, but we know we can’t fight them. It took multiple fleets to destroy just this one, and that victory came at an incredible cost in lives and ships.” She drew a shaky breath. “The Reapers were responsible for the extinction of the Protheans fifty thousand years ago. If we don’t find a way to stop them, then very soon--in a matter of months, weeks, maybe even just _days_ \--they’re going to return and destroy every advanced civilization in the galaxy.”

She sank into her chair and fell silent, allowing Magnus time to digest this. He had no trouble believing her; he’d long suspected that the malevolence of the energy pouring from the Reaper fragment came from a wellspring that could only be described as apocalyptic in nature.

The question was, what could he do about it?

The shadowbox on the wall drew him back to it, the softly gleaming amulets inside beckoning. His hand hovered over them, arrested with indecision.

Was it necessity calling him to act now, or selfishness? Certainly this new information changed everything, but would it help, to carry through with what he was considering?

Or was it simply that he didn’t wish to face the end alone?

Closing his eyes, he touched the bow again, wishing it was more than just runed _adamas_ and resin. Wishing it would tell him something, offer guidance.

It didn’t, and so he turned away and faced Liara once more.

“I’m going to need some assistance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have an update schedule, yet. I'm still looking for a beta reader to brainstorm some plot points with.
> 
> [You can find me on Tumblr.](http://ameliacgormley.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Magnus's request, Liara arranges transportation to a remote, quarantined planet, where he says he can obtain reinforcements for their fight against the Reapers. En route, they take some time to get acquainted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is unbeta'ed.
> 
> (SPOILER ALERT FOR TV SHOW VIEWERS)
> 
> Since the Shadowhunters portion of this story takes place far after canon in the TV show, I've gone with the book canon that Simon is eventually de-vamped and becomes a shadowhunter.

Liara took a slow breath to center herself before pressing the chime to the door of Magnus’s stateroom.

Arranging a small diplomatic transport with empty quarters for Magnus’s errand had been a simple matter. Stepping all her other duties as the Shadow Broker into Feron’s capable hands had been considerably more troublesome. And doing it all it on the vague details Magnus had been willing to provide was just downright unnerving.

It said something about her level of desperation, with the unknown of days left to prepare for the Reapers inexorably flying by, that she was willing to trust Magnus enough to wait until they were underway before demanding any explanations. But now it was time for some answers.

Assuming Magnus didn’t give her any reason to doubt his motives, it might also be a good opportunity to rectify any offense she might have given with her initial skepticism. 

“Come in,” he called, and she stepped through the door to catch a glimpse of him slipping a burgundy velvet bag into the pocket of his immaculately tailored coat. Magic and demonic birthright aside, she’d never met anyone quite like Magnus. Admittedly that could be due to the limited number of humans she’d come to know very well. Nevertheless, his flighty, flamboyant, and occasionally acerbic facade masked a great deal of wisdom and, she suspected, no small amount of tragedy. Getting acquainted with him promised to be an enjoyable experience, assuming the pending Reaper invasion allowed them the opportunity of establishing a rapport.

“Liara. Thank you again, my dear, for arranging such comfortable transport on such short notice,” he greeted with a smile as he turned to unpacking an impact-resistant crate filled with jars and small pouches. “Since I don’t tend to concern myself with affairs outside my limited interests, I’ve heard only the vaguest rumors about the Shadow Broker. The resources at your disposal must be tremendous to commandeer, however, to arrange for this sort of private vessel at the drop of a hat.”

“Yes, the network I inherited when the previous Shadow Broker was, er, compelled to retire, is quite impressive. I don’t often have an opportunity to take full advantage of it for myself. Oh, I meant to tell you, we’ve cleared the Kepler relay.” She stepped closer to look at the the items he was unpacking, fascinated enough to lose track of what she’d been meaning to say. She carefully picked up a jar and peered at the label. She was so unused to seeing human handwriting that it took her a moment to discern the words. “Werewolf fangs?”

“When ground into powder, they’re useful in potions that restore memory or mental clarity in cases of magically-induced amnesia or confusion,” Magnus explained in his airy way, sweeping back and forth between the crate and the shelf. “They’re also _excellent_ for stomach complaints. It’s a pity that once my supply is gone, they’ll be gone forever.”

“There are no more werewolves?”

He shook his head, frowning. “Not any longer. There was an epidemic in the final shadow world conflict, before the ways between dimensions were sealed.” A shadow crossed his face and he paused, drawing a deep breath. “It was the demon equivalent of biological warfare, incapacitating the werewolves to take them out of the fight. The fatality rate was roughly 98%.”

“How large was the werewolf population?” she asked, fascinated and yet also dreading the answer.

“Close to twenty thousand, worldwide.” Magnus’s jaw flexed. “The few werewolves who survived were the strongest and most experienced. They had perfect control over their transformations, so there were no further accidental lycanthropy infections. A few attempted to intentionally infecting mundanes to bolster their numbers, but it turned out the contagion was still active, so the new werewolves quickly succumbed. Thus, when that generation of werewolves died out, there were none to take their place.”

“Goddess,” Liara murmured. The jar in her hand seemed suddenly heavier and more precious. Magnus took it from her, dusting off the lid before setting it on the shelf. He was silent a long moment, and his nitpicky positioning of the bottles and vials and tins on the shelf seemed more like a delaying tactic while he decided what else to tell her. She’d spent the three days since they’d met researching all the legends and myths he’d told her were true, but they still had seemed abstract until this moment.

Magnus didn’t look away from his task as he finally continued his tale. “The werewolves weren’t the only casualties of that conflict, of course. The night children--vampires--were somehow ensorcelled and ended up in thrall to the generals of the demon horde. They became cannon fodder we had to fight our way through before we could confront the demons. Some of the younger shadowhunters, the ones who had defied tradition and befriended downworlders, died because they couldn’t bear to kill their friends.”

He dusted his hands off and turned to the empty crate, collapsing it and stowing it in a nearby closet with a dismissive wave of his hands. “As for the rest of us with demon blood in our veins--the warlocks and faeries and djinn--the surge of runic power accompanying the spell that sealed off our dimension created a sort of magical...shockwave...that killed or incapacitated all but a few of us. I ended up personally euthanizing my good friend Catarina--a warlock who had known me for centuries--after she was left in an irreversibly vegetative state.”

“ _Goddess_. I’m so sorry, Magnus.” Liara laid a hand on his arm and he twitched, glancing down at it with a frown. She quickly withdrew. “I beg your pardon. I tend to be tactile and forget to make sure contact will be welcome. What I meant to say, though, is that when you first spoke of the decline of your ‘shadow world’ you did it so offhandedly, I didn’t realize you were talking about the mass extinction of all your own people.”

“Think nothing of it.” He gave her a tight smile and draped himself along on the stateroom’s small sofa. “I can see how you might not have grasped the enormity of the death toll. I don’t tend to speak of it in such terms.”

“Have you really been able to speak of it at all, with most of the downworlders dead?”

“Also a very good point.” He fidgeted with the ornate rings adorning most of his fingers. “But you may understand why I wish to help you with your Reaper problem. I’ve no desire to live through another genocide, and even less desire to die in one.”

Catching himself mid-fidget, he folded his hands on his chest. “This business you mentioned about melting humans down for their genetic material to build the core of a new Reaper? Honestly, I have no idea what impact my demon heritage would have if I were to be harvested in such a manner and then used to build a demonic construct. However, I can think of several ways such a scenario would end cataclysmically, with my power amplifying that of the Reaper and I’d just as soon not risk it.”

He spoke so casually about the potential for disaster that Liara couldn’t tell if he wasn’t taking it seriously, or--

\--Or perhaps she knew this script after all.

“Er, yes. I think we’d all be better off avoiding that possibility,” Liara agreed dryly, much as she would have with Shepard. Leavening discussions of dire events with a bit of gallows humor was a lesson she’d learned quickly once she’d begun working with the crew of the _Normandy_. Magnus’s lips twitched and, encouraged, she added, “Converting you to a husk probably wouldn’t end well for anyone, either. Least of all, you.”

He smiled delightedly. “I’m pleased to see we’re in agreement. Best to keep me out of Reaper hands altogether. Besides, I’m far too magnificent to come to such a gruesome end.”

She laughed and settled into a chair across from him. Magnus was charming and outrageous and she was rather coming to like him. Something about his wit occasionally reminded her of Garrus. What would Shepard make of him, if they ever had a chance to meet?

“Tell me about this Commander Shepard, Liara,” he invited as though discerning the course of her thoughts. He conjured drinks on the coffee table before each of them. “The rumors of her death a few years ago, and then her subsequent return, were as fascinating as they were uninformative. You, of all people, must have the inside scoop.”

“You could say that.” Liara reached for her drink, humming thoughtfully. “If by ‘inside scoop’ you mean I retrieved her spaced corpse and handed it over to Cerberus so they could use the most advanced cybernetic and bio-regenerative technology in the galaxy to rebuild her then, yes, I suppose I have that.”

One corner of Magnus’s mouth lifted. “Well, I imagine that’s a better means of raising the dead than unscrupulous warlocks used to employ on earth. Less chance of bringing back a monstrosity.”

“Don’t be so sure.” Liara sighed. “We were lucky. Cerberus doesn’t appear to have altered her in any way. They could easily have done so. And I shudder to think what the result would have been.”

“Ah, Cerberus. The ‘earth first’ terrorist movement. All it needs is an orange-skinned blowhard as its egotistical figurehead and it would be déjà vu all over again.”

Liara considered asking him to clarify whatever reference he was making, then decided to look it up later instead. “I’m not sure if the Illusive Man has orange skin, but he does like to hear himself speak and Shepard says that she, quote, wouldn’t trust him to lead a drunk to a pisspot, unquote.”

Magnus laughed aloud at that, then sobered. “Since I seem to be working in common cause with the infamous commander, I have to ask: are the rumors true? Did she really help terrorists slaughter half a million batarians?”

“It was three-hundred thousand, and no, it wasn’t like that at all,” Liara snapped. She took a long drink, scowling into her glass.

“I apologize.” Magnus bowed his head. “I should have asked more tactfully what the true story behind all the conflicting accounts is.”

She rose and crossed to the large window, leaning a shoulder against it as she stared at the stars wavering in the silvery-blue glow of the mass effect field. “She came to visit me, immediately after that happened. She had to get far away from Alliance space as possible until she could complete her mission against the Collectors and turn herself in. She was...devastated.”

 _Devastated_ was putting it mildly. Even with everything they’d been through together, she’d never seen Shepard so completely shattered by a choice she’d made.

“What happened?” Magnus asked softly.

“The Reapers were moments away from coming through the mass relay. If she hadn’t stopped them, they’d already be all over the galaxy by now.” Liara shivered, folding her arms across her chest. Suddenly the coldness of space outside the window was too intense, and she returned to the sofa. “She tried to get a message through to the colony on Aratoht but the transmission was blocked. And then it was too late. Honestly, even if her message had gotten through, there’s little the colonists could have done to evacuate in the time they had. So in answer to your question, the rumors are at least partially true. Shepard _did_ make the choice to destroy a mass relay, and the resulting explosion wiped out the whole Bahak system, including over three-hundred thousand colonists.”

Magnus nodded slowly, not remarking, and after a moment Liara felt compelled to share the rest of the story, the part the press and pundits wouldn’t--or refused to--see. “I didn’t know Shepard for terribly long before her death and return, but we went through a great deal together so I’d like to think I know her well. I suppose some might call her cold. Kind to her friends, but she regards strangers with suspicion. It took her a while to warm up to me when we first met, though a great deal of that was because of my mother. Growing up in the slums on Earth the way she did, she did what was necessary to survive. She’s...hard, sometimes. I’ve seen her make brutal choices without flinching, and her definition of justice has little to do with laws and courts.”

She leaned forward, pressing a fist against the aching knot in the center of her chest. “But I’ve also seen her take incredible risks, usually with her own life, to save innocent people. If there had been any way to prevent what happened to those colonists--any way that didn’t involve letting the Reapers invade at the cost of trillions of lives all over the galaxy--she would have done it.”

“I see.” Magnus steepled his hands together under his chin, his eyes unfocused, as if gazing at something that was no longer there. “I knew a woman who once made a similar choice. She was the architect of the plan that resulted in the deaths of most of the warlocks and fae and djinn. Finding the capacity to forgive oneself for such a thing--I don’t know how one does that. She didn’t have the emotional armor your Shepard seems to have, so she never quite managed it.”

“I don’t believe Shepard will do that to herself,” Liara murmured, though she couldn’t really say if it was certainty or wishful thinking that led her to that belief. “She’ll make her peace with it, in time. I hope the Alliance is providing her with help, and that she’s allowing them to do so. She’s been incarcerated on earth for months now. The batarians want her remanded for trial on Khar’shan and executed. But my sources in the Alliance say she’s coping.”

Magnus was watching her with a knowing look. “I’ve watched the struggles of a person in your position before. I understand the ordeal of loving someone who carries that sort of burden on their soul.”

“Oh. Oh, no. You’re mistaken.” Liara cleared her throat, ignoring the warmth flooding her face. The embarrassment of declaring her attraction only to be rebuffed had been excruciating at the time, but only briefly. What had developed in its place was every bit as worthwhile. “We’re friends.”

“My apologies. I stand corrected,” Magnus said mildly, and moved the conversation on with almost no reaction to an error that, had Liara made it, would have had her stammering.

Was it his centuries of existence that made Magnus such a puzzle? Or was it the fact that he wasn’t actually human? Not that Liara was an expert on human behavior; a mere three years ago she’d barely known any humans. Her time aboard the _Normandy_ and on Illium had expanded her horizons, but Magnus challenged everything she thought she’d come to know about their species.

His manner of dress was vibrant, and she would expect his personality to match. And in some ways, it did, but he could be surprisingly understated at unexpected times. He seemed impossible to unsettle. He assimilated what others might find to be shocking revelations with barely a flicker of consternation. He sidestepped scenes of social awkwardness with a dancer’s grace and soothed over moments of distress as effectively as the touch of a trained Consort. His manners could be as subtle as his fashions were bold.

And with just the tiniest lift of his eyebrow or twitch of his lips, he managed to convey volumes.

Such as the fact that he’d seen right through Liara just now.

“Oh! I’ve gotten distracted,” she blurted. “I need to inform our pilot what course to set now that we’re through the relay. I certainly appreciate your need for discretion, but most of the crew here are on the Shadow Broker’s payroll.”

“That’s good to know.” Magnus sat up and clapped his hands together. When he spread them again with a flourish, a 3D display leapt up from the coffee table--which was, in fact, a perfectly ordinary coffee table and not equipped with holographic projectors. He wasn’t wearing an omnitool either, which meant the projection was of his own making.

He started with a galaxy map, which he zoomed in on the Kepler Verge. Then he flicked one star system after another out of the display with a brush of his fingers until only one was left. “Here it is. This is where we’re headed.”

Liara blinked at it, then called up the survey information for the planet in question. Fortunately Magnus’s conjured display worked just like a real one, in that regard.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” Liara frowned at the data. Had they come all this way for nothing? Surely he knew better than to suggest... “That planet is quarantined. It’s inhabited by a pre-spaceflight culture. In fact, the Council’s survey teams suggest that, if left to evolve without interference, they might never undergo a technological revolution or develop into a spacefaring race. Landing a vessel there would be a violation of Council law.”

“We won’t be landing there in any ship or shuttle, I assure you.” Magnus smiled innocently, which Liara trusted not at all. “We just need to get into orbit, near enough for me to open a portal to a remote rendezvous point where I’ll meet with an acquaintance--who I promise will in no way be shocked or influenced by our existence or technology.”

“And what will we be doing there?” she asked, still reluctant to consider authorizing anyone to set foot on such a world.

“This particular world has unique forms of magic that can’t be performed elsewhere. The warlocks here--not that they call them that--aren’t demon hybrids. Which isn’t to say they don’t have their own issues with demons, but those demons come from a different dimension than the ones which troubled earth. Those two notable differences may be linked, I don’t know.” He stared at the holo-display thoughtfully. “A long time ago, I needed a spell to safeguard against the possibility that demons might one day return to a defenseless Earth. I tried to learn the required spell to no avail. It requires the magic of _this_ world, and I don’t possess that. It took years of desperate searching to find someone else who could do it, but let us say I know a demon who knows a demon who knows a warlock.”

“To do what?”

“To expand our pool of resources for fighting an immense demonic threat such as the Reapers, of course.”

He reclined on the sofa again with a negligence so ostentatious that it pulled Liara’s attention away from the display. She could almost swear he was trying too hard to project an air of casual unconcern.

“How did you come to make any contacts here, if humans only acquired mass effect technology thirty years ago?” she asked, keeping her attention on him.

“I traveled a very dangerous route, through dimensions teeming with demons.” His expression grew somber. “It was an all-or-nothing gamble, and it came at great cost, but I-- _we_ \--deemed it worth the risk.”

“And what will this accomplish?”

“As powerful as I am--and I daresay of the scant handful of warlocks remaining from earth, I’m by far the most powerful--I’m still only one warlock.” Magnus inhaled slowly and reached into his pocket, withdrawing the pouch she’d seen him tuck away earlier. He ran his hand over it tenderly, and when he spoke, there was the slightest hitch in his voice. “If all goes well, when I portal back to this ship, we’ll have reinforcements for the fight against the Reapers.”

* * *

Since there was no mass relay in the system they were headed to, getting there took longer than the first leg of the journey, from the Citadel to the Kepler Verge on the far side of the galaxy, had taken.

Liara was waiting once again in Magnus’s stateroom when the pilot contacted them to let them know they’d entered orbit.

“You still insist on accompanying me?” Magnus asked when the pilot got off the comm.

Liara nodded. “Whatever happens here, the responsibility rests on my shoulders, since I used my resources to enable it. Not that I don’t trust you, but--”

“--but you’re still not sure you trust all this talk about demons and magic,” Magnus finished for her..

Since he appeared amused rather than offended, Liara tried not to look chagrined. Her success remained very much in question.

“It’s not so much the notion of your magic I mistrust as the ramifications of whatever it is you’re intending.”

“Very well, then. We’d best hurry to be certain no one sees us who isn’t suppose to,” Magnus said briskly, spreading his arms wide. A wall of energy unlike anything Liara had ever seen before shimmered into existence.

Magnus held out his hand. “I’ve never portaled an asari before, so I have no way of guaranteeing your safety. However, I also can’t see any reason that it shouldn’t be fine. Some mundanes--and a few vampires and werewolves--report experiencing nausea or dizziness, but it should pass quickly.” He smiled in encouragement when she hesitated. “Basic portal safety: never enter a portal unless you know where you’re going, or you’re accompanied by someone who does. That would be me. Aside from that, just step through it like a door.”

Inhaling deeply, she strode forward and accepted his hand, and followed him into the swirling nothingness. The instant in which they were nowhere seemed to last an eternity, but then suddenly they were standing on a mountaintop, surrounded by crags and overlooking a pristine wilderness. Liara swayed, shaking her head against a wave of vertigo.

“Ah, here they come,” Magnus remarked blithely, energy beginning to glow between his hands.

She couldn’t see anything, but nonetheless, Liara let her biotic energy sizzle along her skin. “Who?”

“A sort of welcoming committee. Or maybe a test we have to pass, I’m not quite certain.”

In her peripheral vision, a shadow shifted, and she realized what she’d mistaken for a heap of rock was actually a cairn--and all around them were similar markers. They were standing in the middle of a burial ground, and something amorphous and barely visible was rising from the graves.

Magnus scoffed. “Animating the dead? Not very inventive, is it?” He propelled a ball of power at one of the spectres emerging from the stone mounds and it dissipated with a howl. “They’re flimsy, too. I’m almost insulted.”

“Well, let’s be sure to pass on your feedback to the management,” Liara replied dryly. She threw a singularity into the midst of a clump of shades and decaying skeletons and was pleased to see they were corporeal enough to be caught in its grasp. Their advance halted, and they were snatched up, swirling uncontrollably in the air. Magnus flung bolts of energy at them while they writhed and struggled to free themselves. His magic pulverized bones of skeletons already being torn apart by the singularity while Liara grabbed another skeleton with her biotics and sent it flying over a cliff.

“I hope there’s no one down there!” she called, beginning to smile. He was right; these things were barely worthy of their time. And since she didn’t have enough attention to devote to the fact that she was fighting actual _undead_ creatures, she could enjoy the skirmish as she might a biotic sparring match with Shepard.

By the time the shades and skeletons stopped crawling from the graves, she felt nicely invigorated and warmed to whatever else this endeavor of Magnus’s would throw at them.

Magnus, however, didn’t seem to be enjoying himself any longer. He pulled the velvet pouch from his pocket again and held it close to his chest, watching a faint footpath that curved down the mountain. After a few moments, a waifish young woman with long, pointed ears and vine-like tattoos on her face appeared over a rise.

“Oh, hello. I’m Merrill.” she said, a courteous lilt of inquiry in her tone. She bowed deeply for a moment before rising to study them. She looked at Liara considerably longer than Magnus, suggesting that he didn’t appear nearly as alien to her as Liara was. “I received a summons from Asha’bellanar saying that I was needed here. I’ve been waiting for days. Are you the ones I was supposed to meet?”

“We are.” Magnus gave her a courteous nod of greeting. “Please forgive the delay; the timing of our arrival couldn’t be adequately conveyed with the means I had to contact your, er, Asha’bellanar.” He opened the pouch and emptied it into his palm, spilling out a set of amulets Liara had noticed hanging in a display in his apartment the day they met. “You know the spell to activate these?”

Merrill nodded readily. “I performed a similar service for Asha’bellanar herself, only a couple years ago.” Her huge eyes grew even wider. “Mythal! How did you learn to make these? Asha’bellanar doesn’t teach her secrets to just anyone.”

“It amused her to have an opportunity to spite my father. No doubt there’s a story behind it dating back to the beginning of time, but I don’t know the specifics. Anyway, since he refused his aid when I sought it, she granted hers.” Magnus smiled, but it was a guarded expression. “Shall we proceed?”

“Of course. Place them on the altar and then stand back, please.”

Magnus delayed a moment, staring at the gleaming amulets in his palm with a grave expression. The sharp ridge at the front of his throat bobbed as he swallowed once, then strode forward to do as she’d requested, laying each piece out neatly in a row along its surface.

When he stepped back, Merrill stood before the altar and raised her arms, murmuring an incantation in a melodious language Liara’s omnitool had no translation for. An amber glow began to emanate from just above the surface of the altar, gradually getting brighter until it burst with a flash that made Liara flinch back, thinking there would be an explosion.

Then the light was gone, leaving six rather confused-looking humans behind, blinking in the sun.

Liara was no judge of human longevity, but they seemed to be around Shepard’s age, their mid-thirties, maybe slightly older. Most of them had dark tattoos displayed prominently on their skin. One of the two women had shockingly white hair, far whiter than what was normal for humans. One of the men was un-tattooed and seemed much older than the others, with dark skin and glowing green eyes.

Liara turned to ask Magnus who these people were, but stopped mid-sentence. For the first time since meeting him, Magnus looked genuinely discomposed. He held himself so still he quivered with it, and he was staring at the tallest man the way a person who’s lived indoors all their life might look at the sky upon seeing it for the first time.

While the other five people were still getting their bearings, the tall one came down from the altar in long, determined strides and crushed Magnus to him.

Liara glanced away, offering them privacy. The others were helping each other down off the altar, and they were all giving her and Merrill inquisitive looks. Liara suspected they’d never seen an asari and a...whatever Merrill happened to be...before.

The embracing pair beside her finally broke apart, each of them breathing harshly.

“How long?” The tall man asked, his voice low and rough with emotions Liara could only guess at. “What year is it?”

Magnus drew in a deep breath. “It’s 2186.”

The man bent over slightly, as if he’d taken a blow to the stomach. “A hundred and fifty years? Have you--Do you--” His eyes flicked over to Liara and he stepped back from Magnus quickly. “I-I should have asked. Are you--”

“I’m not with anyone.” Magnus’s hand shot out, capturing the man’s arm before he could retreat any further. “Alexander. There’s no one.”

“Wait. Wait. _Really_?” Another man with a sort of boyish manner about him, approached. “For real? We’re in the future? Is this--” he turned to Liara, his eyes huge and an enormous smile spreading across his face. He sounded a little breathless. “Oh my God. Wow. You don’t look like any sort of demon we’ve ever seen. Are you--you are an _alien_?”

By the time he reached the end of his question, his voice had climbed so high in pitch and volume that he startled nearby birds from their perches. It snapped Magnus out of his intense focus on the man he’d called Alexander and he came forward in his busy, gliding stride.

“This isn’t proper place for catching up on current events. Let’s go somewhere more suitable. I think we’ve concluded our business here.” He turned to Merrill, conjuring something in his palm with a flourish. “For your trouble, my dear. Thank you,” he said amiably, handing her a trinket or artifact Liara had to assume was magical in nature. Merrill bowed and left them, retreating down the path that had brought her up the mountain.

When she had gone, Magnus summoned another portal.

“Shall we?” he invited, sweeping his hand toward it. The six people all entered the portal without hesitation, though the smiling one who’d asked such eager questions grimaced a bit before stepping through.

Apparently, these reinforcements were far more familiar with Magnus and his magic than she was. After a moment of trying to figure out who they were and failing, Liara followed them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have an update schedule, yet. I'm still looking for a beta reader to brainstorm some plot points with.
> 
> [You can find me on Tumblr.](http://ameliacgormley.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus introduces Liara to the Shadowhunters, and begins orienting these former inhabitants of the 21st century on the Reaper threat and all that has changed since they had lived and died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is still unbeta'ed, sorry. I drifted away from my beta crew in my old fandoms years ago and haven't found a new beta crew for my new fandoms yet.

**2036 C.E.**

The pages of ancient manuscript Magnus laid out before them weren’t written in any language Alec recognized, but the drawings were clear enough.

“What would these do?” he asked, his fingers hovering over one fragile page after another without actually touching.

“The amulets would capture a sliver of your essence--not much, just a small piece--and preserve it,” Magnus explained. The muscle in his jaw flexed subtly. “When the correct spell is used, in the proper place and by someone capable of using the sort of magic it requires, you would be...reconstituted.”

“ _Really_?” Simon scoffed. “ _This_ is a plan you want us to consider? If we learned nothing else from _Harry Potter_ didn’t we at least get the hint that dividing up one’s soul to stave off mortality isn’t a great idea?”

Magnus shook his head, his lips twitching despite his overall gravity. “Not to fear, there will be no sundering of souls involved. It’s more like a...screen capture. Or an emergency backup. When the amulets are activated, you’d be restored at the same age and with all the experiences and memories you possessed at the time they were created.”

Izzy tilted her head, studying the manuscript. “So not raising us from the dead, more like time-shifting us into the future?”

“Close, but not exactly.” Magnus waved off the idea. “We scratched out the possibility of any form of time travel for a reason. By this method, there would be no potential impact on the timeline. Your lives and deaths would still have transpired in their own time. You would simply be recreated, exact copies of yourselves as you were in the moment when you parted with that piece of your essence--which, for our purposes, would mean a tiny phial of your blood and an small, irreplaceable object of deep personal significance.”

“We’d be missing memories.” Jace remarked thoughtfully. “Is that what I’m getting here? Anything that happens to us after the amulets are created, up until we die, that would all be lost?”

“It would.” Magnus sighed. “And yes, that could conceivably be years of memories. With spells of this nature, there’s always a tradeoff. You all know that by now. The object of this endeavor is to bring you back while you’re still relatively young and capable of doing battle with demons should the need arise. You might live for decades after the spell is cast, but if we preserved your essence at some future time, the recreation of you would far older and thus considerably less effective for our purposes.”

“So the sooner we do this, the better,” Izzy concluded with a firm nod. “Got it.”

They spent the following hours hashing over the plan, before deciding to reconvene the following evening to discuss it further. Alec closed the door behind everyone gratefully and turned to face Magnus, who was seated with his head bowed, whatever had been troubling him all evening resting heavily on his shoulders.

“They’re gone,” he announced, crossing the room to pour Magnus a drink. But when he sat it down on the coffee table before Magnus, he ignored it. “There’s more to this, isn’t there? Something you didn’t tell us.”

“Them. I didn’t tell _them_.” Finally Magnus stirred, taking a sip of whiskey before turning troubled eyes up to Alec. “What remains to be discussed is a decision you and I need to make between ourselves. It doesn’t concern the others.”

It was the gravest Alec had seen Magnus since he’d put his friend Catarina out of her misery. He felt for the chair behind him, sitting without ever taking his eyes off Magnus.

“Tell me.”

“To get to this place where the spell must be performed, I would have to pass through multiple dimensions.”

“You mentioned that. What else?”

“A few of them are dangerous but not prohibitively so, I think. But...these dimensions, they’re like some of the faerie realms. Time passes differently, sometimes far more slowly than it does here.” His hand tightened on his glass and he swallowed hard. “Alexander, I have no idea how much time will go by before I get back. I could be gone for years. Or decades.”

* * *

**2186 C.E.**

The room Magnus portaled them felt claustrophobic. There was no natural light, and a strange ambient hum seemed to settle right into Alec’s bones. He almost assumed they were underground until--

“Are we in space? Oh my God!” Simon asked breathlessly, rushing to a window Alec hadn’t even noticed because all his attention had been on Magnus. “ _Are you freaking kidding me_? We’re in _SPACE_!”

“Ow. Indoor voice, Simon,” Clary said, rubbing her beneath her curtain of white hair. She got overloaded easily since the Damming. Jace’s hand was on her back, and it didn’t appear he had any attention to spare for their location or situation.

Alec registered their interaction while his eyes found each of the others, checking again to be sure they’d all made it. Luke looked gray, and his eyes flashed a little, suggesting the wolf inside him was somewhat alarmed. The rest of them were pale. Alec imagined he wasn’t much better off. His body felt strange, like the magic that had reconstructed it was still slotting all his cells into their proper places.

“Anyone else feel lighter?” Izzy asked, her hand resting on the back of a chair as if holding it for balance.

“Lovely feeling, isn’t it?” Magnus remarked, waving a hand to close the portal behind him. “Artificial gravity on vessels this size is usually around 85% of what it is on Earth. But perhaps we should move on to introductions.”

Jace pulled his eyes away from Clary long enough to nod. “Please.”

“Very well. This is Dr. Liara T’Soni, galaxy-famous scholar and archeologist. She’s an asari, one the more enlightened species humanity has encountered in the thirty years since we acquired the ability to travel beyond our own solar system. Liara--” he began to gesture to each of them in turn “--the are are the former head of the New York Shadowhunter Institute, Alexander Lightwood; his sister, Isabelle Lightwood; their brother Jace Herondale and his wife Clary; Clary’s close friend Simon Lovelace, and Luke Garroway, erstwhile leader of the Brooklyn werewolves.”

The blue-skinned woman with tendrils on the back of her head looked torn between consternation and fascination. “It’s a pleasure. But, please. I’m afraid I have no context. None of the Earth legends I researched at ever mentioned ‘shadowhunters.’”

“I apologize,” Magnus said sincerely. “I neglected to consider how undocumented their existence was. I’ll provide you with relevant scrolls on the nephilim later, but suffice to say they’re elite demon hunters. Given the nature of the Reaper threat, their expertise is the best resource I can hope to contribute.”

“Something’s happened on Earth?” Alec asked, impatience making him blunt. He needed answers from Magnus that weren’t suitable for a group briefing, but clearly they were going to wade through this first.

“It hasn’t happened yet, at least not fully. But all evidence points to a galaxy-wide incursion of something with demonic origins in the near future. Have a seat, everyone, please.” Magnus gestured to the sitting area. Alec leaned more than sat on the arm of a chair, while the others settled in on sofas. While they got comfortable, Magnus drew power between his hands and flung it at the wall, where a sideboard with an assortment of food appeared. “If you’re not hungry now, I’m sure you will be as soon as the effects of the spell wear off. In the meantime, Liara, would you care to fill us in?”

“Yes, of course.” Liara shook herself and held up her wrist. From a device she wore on her arm, a 3D display sprang up, featuring the face of a striking woman with military bearing. “This is Commander Gabrielle Shepard, of the Systems Alliance. That’s, er, the human military. Three years ago, I helped Shepard repel an invasion from a race of artificially intelligent, synthetic lifeforms we call Reapers. At that time, we discovered that for millions of years, the Reapers have perpetuated a cycle of extermination, roughly every fifty thousand years, where they eradicate every advanced organic species.”

A new image appeared, this one of ruins from some ancient civilization. They didn’t resemble anything Alec had ever seen when studying history.

“When we first started, we had no idea what the Reapers were or where they came from,” Liara continued. “We’ve uncovered few answers as to their nature and origin along the way, but it wasn’t until I met Magnus that I learned that they were--” she hesitated, then pushed ahead “--demonic.”

“ _Not_ demons, but clearly created under demonic influence.” Magnus added and conjured another image beside hers. This one Alec recognized, from his studies of shadowhunter history. “I’ve seen demonic constructs--objects that come to life when powered by demonic energy--before, during my time in Victorian-era London. But never anything like this.”

Simon leaned forward. “So we’re dealing with--what? Demon automatons? Androids?”

“Ships,” Liara answered, pulling up yet another image, this one of a metal hulk that looked vaguely insectoid. “Massive ships. Each one is a platform running thousands of artificially intelligent programs. The ships--and most other artifacts made by the Reapers--emanate an energy field that is capable of altering the neurological processes of organic beings who are exposed to them, a sort of brainwashing or obedience conditioning. We call it ‘indoctrination.’”

“Possession,” Izzy murmured, folding her arms over her chest as she stared at the display.

“Perhaps.” Magnus frowned. “I’ve yet to encounter any of the victims of this ‘indoctrination’ to ascertain whether or not there is an actual demonic presence within them.”

“Just how massive are we talking about here?” Luke asked.

Magnus snapped his fingers and an image of the Freedom Tower sprang up on the display. Just the legs of the Reaper ship--less than a quarter of its total length--was taller than the skyscraper they’d seen constructed. “To give you an idea of scale.”

Simon whistled. “We’re gonna need bigger seraph blades.”

Magnus shrugged, spreading his hands helplessly. “Admittedly, I have no idea how we’re supposed to fight something this large, especially when they’re in space. But since they _are_ demonic in origin and the fate of humanity--not to mention a dozen or more other spacefaring races--is at stake, these circumstances meet the conditions we all agreed to for using the amulets.”

“Do you mind if I ask--” Liara punched something into the device on her arm and the display disappeared. Her voice grew brighter than when they were discussing the Reapers, eager with curiosity. “What _were_ those amulets? What did you do down there on the planet’s surface?”

“Ah, yes.” Magnus nodded briskly. “Perhaps I should explain.”

* * *

**2036 C.E.**

“I think that’s everything,” Alec pronounced, squatting beside the rucksack he’d just finished zipping. His hands flexed as if he wanted to unpack it and sort through its contents again to make certain he hadn’t missed anything.

Magnus turned up his nose. “I’m not carrying that. Do you know what sort of wrinkles it will cause?”

“Don’t do that.” Pushing himself to his feet, Alec gave Magnus a look that cut through any attempt at keeping the mood light. He settled his hands on Magnus’s hips and pulled, just a little. Magnus closed the space between them willingly, reaching up. His fingers brushed the devastatingly attractive veins of silver coming in at Alec’s temples. “I don’t give a damn about your shirt getting wrinkled, and neither do you. If you get held up somewhere that you can’t summon food or water, you need supplies.”

“If I get held up somewhere, supplies will be the least of my worries.”

“Then take me with you.” Alec’s hands tightened, enough so that Magnus could feel his fingers digging in. He was far from unaccustomed to Alec’s fingerprints on his hips, but never in this context.

Magnus’s heart ached. “You know that’s impossible. Some of the planes I must cross can’t be touched by mortals.”

Whether or not they were safe for Magnus himself remained to be seen, and Alec had vigorously protested him going at first. They’d spent months debating this decision, Magnus and Alec, the Lightwood family and social circle. After all, it was a risky gambit--even for a warlock--to undertake a journey through interweaving dimensions. And that was _after_ more than a decade of searching for any insurance policy they could devise, some way to safeguard against the possibility that the world might one day find itself under attack by demons again.

Time was running out. The last remaining shadowhunters were aging. The younger generation was assimilating into mundane culture. Nephilim children weren’t having their rune ceremonies anymore. The teens and young adults were choosing de-runing so they could marry mundanes.

In a generation or two, there would be no one left to defend earth against supernatural threats should they ever arise again, save the handful of surviving warlocks.

Magnus couldn’t see any other option, any possible way to put this journey off any longer. The spell he’d learned about had to be worked while the subjects were still living.

Assuming they were still alive by the time he reached his destination.

Magnus winced and pressed his brow to the top of Alec’s shoulder, the pain more immense than anything he could have prepared himself for, even if he’d had years rather than just a few weeks. “I can’t--”

“Hey, none of that.” Alec shuddered in his arms, blew one harsh breath into Magnus’s hair, then pulled away. “Jace called and wanted to know where to host your sendoff. I told him we’d meet them all at Pandemonium.”

Magnus reared back, scoffing in disbelief. “You hate going to the club. At least you do now that the younger crowd’s starting to ask whose dad you are. And just when I’d finally convinced you to let yourself it.”

Alec shrugged, one corner of his mouth turning up in a wry smile. “I’ll manage for a night.”

So that was how they were going to cope. Drive their impending--and possibly permanent--separation out of their minds with music and activity. “You wouldn’t rather a quiet evening at home?”

“Why?” Alec rolled his eyes. “So we can hash it all over again and and up at the same conclusion we’ve come to at least a couple dozen times, which is that we have no choice?”

Magnus sighed, resignation slumping his shoulders. “You’ll dance with me?”

“Under duress,” Alec said with a smirk. “And only if you promise not to order me any drinks with names longer than two words.”

“Make ‘and’ a free word and you have a deal.”

* * *

**2186 C.E.**

Magnus had barely made it through his explanation to Liara about the spell he’d sought to bring his friends and family into the present, when the shadowhunters and werewolf in question all began to droop, clearly exhausted by the aftereffects of the process that had reconstituted them. He pulled out one of the crates he’d brought with him and opened it, revealing their steles and weapons. Once those were distributed, he asked Liara to escort them all to their staterooms and she had kindly complied.

“Oh, my God,” Simon gasped on his way out the door, clasping Clary’s arm as though he needed something to hold himself upright. “Do you know what this means? I have a _hundred and fifty years_ of cinema to catch up on!”

Magnus impatiently waved the door closed, cutting them off when its own sensors didn’t react quickly enough.

“Between Liara’s resources and my magic, the legal paperwork to make you fully documented citizens of the Systems Alliance shouldn’t be an issue,” he remarked, tidying up the room as Alec slumped wearily on the sofa, looking peaked. “Of course there’s going to be a lot of history and culture for you all to assimilate in very short order. Things changed very quickly after the discovery of the Prothean archives on Mars and the discovery of other life in the galaxy. We might want to keep Simon sequestered until he’s settled enough not to blurt out something that will give it all away.”

“Magnus. Sit down and quit doing the--the bustling, chatty avoidance thing. Please?”

He froze mid-motion, an ache lancing through his chest. It had been so long since he’d heard Alec speak to with such gentle familiarity. Yet Alec did it as easily as if he were accustomed to doing it every day.

Which, Magnus supposed, he was.

He sank onto the other end of the sofa from Alec, keeping some space between them. Alec wasn’t having it though. He reached for Magnus’s hand and took it in a sure grasp.

“How long did the journey end up taking?” Alec asked.

Magnus took a moment to center himself. “I’m no expert on trans-dimensional relativity, of course. From my perspective it seemed to be only a few weeks. But when I returned, thirty-five years had passed.”

Alec drew a shaky breath. “We knew that was a risk.” He spoke the words softly, as if to remind himself rather than Magnus. “W-was I--? Did we--?”

“You were gone. You’d passed away five years before I returned.” He slipped his hand out of Alec’s and popped to his feet, folding his arms across his chest as he moved restlessly about the room. “To this day I don’t know if that made it easier or not.”

“Me either.” Alec bowed his head. “I think my nightmare scenario was always that you’d come back soon enough that we’d still have years together, but that I wouldn’t have those memories anymore when you ended up using the amulets. There’d be all this history that I was just...missing.”

“Like it was for Simon.”

Alec nodded. “Yeah.”

A long moment of silence fell and eventually Magnus settled on the sofa again.

“Was anyone else left?” Alec asked.

“Isabelle was the only one of you still alive, and that was just for a few years more. She’d moved away from New York, though, and I didn’t go to see her.” He shrugged helplessly. “I felt it was better not to disrupt her life.”

Alec nodded slowly. “Did I leave anything for you?”

“Some letters. Especially in the first few years. You were lonely for a while, of course, but if you were deeply unhappy after you’d had time to adjust, you were careful not to give any hint of it.”

Those letters had been a sweet agony, one Magnus inflicted upon himself over and over again when he’d returned. He’d let himself witness in those missives the slow process of Alec adapting to a void in his life where Magnus had once dwelt. Alec finding solace in his friends and family as their lives continued to grow and develop. Cutting his own heart open reading one particular guilt-ridden confession of the first time loneliness drove Alec to seek the sort of companionship he’d forsworn before Magnus left, even though he’d had begged Alec not to wait too long before moving on.

And finally, Alec’s resignation had morphed into some semblance of contentment and acceptance.

“But you--you haven’t--” Alec swallowed hard. “--found anyone?”

That had to be a difficult question, particularly since--from Alec’s perspective--they’d been happily in love and living their lives together just yesterday. Magnus had felt the same sort of disjoint when he’d returned from having the amulets imbued. His memories of Alec as a not-yet middle-age man had been only weeks old. But in actuality, Alec had died at the age of seventy-five.

“If you’re asking if I’ve slept alone for the last century and change, Alexander, the answer is no.” Magnus spoke as gently as he could, but he had to be honest on this point, as Alec had been in his letters.

Alec nodded, his hands clenching and unclenching on his thighs. “I wouldn’t have expected you to.”

“And so I did not. But if you’re asking if I’ve found another person I’ve loved in all that time--that answer there is also no.” Magnus grimaced, shaking his head. “It’s odd. You’d think for someone who’s immortal, moving on from the loss of someone beloved would get easier over time, just by virtue of experience. But I’ve found it to be the exact opposite. Each time it happens, it takes me longer to open myself up to the possibility again. Perhaps it’s a matter of getting more...discriminating as time goes on. Perhaps you simply set the bar too high.”

“Still. You’ve had a hundred and fifty years of moving on and I--haven’t.” Alec grimaced. “I’m not sure where that leaves us?”

Magnus spread his hands helplessly. “To be honest, neither am I. I’m immortal, but not unchanging. And this is a situation that defies all my centuries of experience.”

Alec shrank in on himself. Just a little, but it hurt to see those tall, proud shoulders droop. “You don’t feel the same way about me anymore.”

It hurt more how readily Alec believed that to be a possibility. And how necessary it was that he continue to believe.

Magnus swallowed and shored up his will. “Yes, and no.” Alec’s brow beetled, and Magnus pressed on. “Alexander, seeing you appear before me today was...more joyous than I can describe. I’ve _missed_ you. And if my devotion was feeble enough to be broken by a century and a half of absence, my relationship with Camille would never have been as convoluted as it was.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t appreciate being compared to Camille in any way whatsoever,” Alec gritted. “But if what you’re saying is that you still love me--”

“ _Always_ ,” Magnus said with as much conviction as he could possibly pack into two syllables. “It’s more a question of whether or not we _fit_ anymore.”

At that, Alec smirked. “Magnus, if you’re waiting to figure that out, you may as well not have used the amulet. We _made_ ourselves fit, because--”

“Because the alternative was intolerable. Yes, I remember. Except--” he drew in a slow breath, picking carefully through his words. “You know that’s not why I used the amulets.”

Alec blinked and then nodded slowly. “Because I made you swear not to.”

* * *

**2036 C.E.**

Magnus’s hands sparked, any hope of reining in his magic entirely obliterated by the feel of Alec underneath him, within him. He rode his beloved with all the urgency and desperation he felt at the knowledge that their final hours together--possibly forever--were flying past and for all his power, he couldn’t stop them.

He tried to take in every impression, every sensation, to file them in his memory.

_Just in case._

Quivering muscles under his fingertips. Runes under his tongue. The scent of alcohol and canned bee smoke lingering from the club underpinning sweat and musk. His body full and straining, heated muscles approaching the point of failure as he pushed himself to move harder, faster.

“ _Magnus_ ,” Alec groaned, half in plea and half in warning. And then they were beyond the point of restraint or resistance and there was nothing left to do but ride out the storm they’d created together.

“All my power, the ability to rework reality with my thoughts alone, and I still don’t know if I have the strength to make myself do this,” Magnus confessed hopelessly when they lay trembling in the aftermath, wound together.

“You have to,” Alec rasped. “The Clave won’t listen that we need to find a way to keep watch, that just because we’ve sealed things off for now there’s still a chance demons might find a way to get through some day.”

“I know.” Magnus pressed his brow to Alec’s shoulder, closing his eyes and trying to absorb this feeling of _togetherness_ for as long as he could. “I’ve lost people I’ve loved before. You know I have. But never have I willingly sacrificed the sort of joy I’ve known with you on nothing more substantial than a maybe. I don’t know if I have that in me, Alexander.”

“You do. Of course you do.” Alec stroked Magnus’s jaw, lifting his face for a long, slow kiss full of desperation. “Just promise me it won’t be for nothing. If I’m--not here anymore when you get back, promise me you won’t use the amulets unless you absolutely have to. If I’m gone, let me go.”

Magnus swallowed back the urge to protest that he’d never activate the amulets for anything less than a situation of dire necessity. The truth was, if he got back and found decades had passed without him and Alec was nothing more than a memory, he couldn’t deny he’d be strongly tempted to reclaim their lost years.

It cost him every ounce of willpower his had left, but Magnus promised.

* * *

**2186 C.E.**

“You didn’t make me swear anything I wouldn’t have voluntarily vowed already,” Magnus said sadly. Alec thought he looked even more troubled than he had in those weeks leading up to his departure. “We didn’t sacrifice the lifetime we should have had together just for me to squander the opportunity it bought us.”

“Well, I’d say this Reaper threat definitely qualifies as an emergency.” Weariness and a strange feeling of being out of sync with everything around him pressed down on Alec, making it hard for him to focus. “I really have no idea what we can do against something this huge, but at least we’ll have a chance to try to figure it out.”

Magnus nodded, then shook himself. “Tomorrow we’ll begin working on it. For now, my--Alec, you should get some rest. The spell has obviously taken its toll and you’ll need time to recuperate.”

“What about you?” he asked without meaning to, breaking the promise he’d made to himself just moments ago not to push for Magnus to pick up their relationship where they’d left off. There was only one bedroom leading off the staterooms sitting area, and it was clear he and Magnus were meant to share it.

Magnus smiled wanly, not meeting Alec’s eyes. “Shipboard time makes it hard to tell, but it’s actually the middle of the day for me. I think I’ll stay up for a while and try to compile some notes on the Reaper threat, possibilities we can explore once the six of you have recovered your stamina. It will be a few days until we reach the Citadel. When you’re all awake we’ll begin your 22nd century orientation.”

“Right.” Alec made himself move in the direction of the bedroom, but seeing Magnus so close, having him within arm's’ reach, derailed all his best intentions. He stretched out a hand without volition, exploratory fingers caressing the curve of Magnus’s brow, the line of his jaw, the bobbing lump of his Adam’s apple. “Whatever else happens, Magnus, I’m glad that...maybe we’ll have a chance to get it all back. Even if it doesn’t work out, at least I got to see you again. I wasn’t sure I ever would.”

The play of emotions on Magnus’s face was far too complicated for Alec to sort through it all, even with as well as he knew Magnus after nearly twenty years together.

“I am, too, Alexander. I can’t promise anything, but--we’ll see what happens.” This time Magnus’s smile was more familiar, that gentle, hopeful thing Alec remembered from the early days when they were first falling for each other and this immortal being who’d been hurt over so many centuries was cautiously letting himself take a risk on Alec.

Alec cupped his cheek and Magnus turned his face, pressing a kiss into Alec’s palm. Alec swore he felt it in every cell of his body.

“Get some rest, Alexander. I’ll be here when you wake.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus and his resurrected companions arrive at the Citadel, but before they have time to settle in, Liara arrives to announce she needs to leave immediately, and she wants Magnus to go with her.

Magnus spent the trip back to the Citadel conducting a crash course on the last century and a half of galactic history, for the benefit of his sometimes-awestruck and sometimes-bewildered friends and family.

Of the six of them, Simon seemed the most resilient, though much of that could simply be chalked up to geekish enthusiasm. Alec was withdrawn, not quite sullen but certainly introspective as he silently processed both his sudden transition into the future and Magnus’s reluctance to resume their relationship where they had left it. Jace, Luke, and Isabelle were all business, determined to absorb the information they needed and assimilate as quickly as possible so that they could function more effectively in this new era. And Clary…

...Clary was the same quiet, hollowed-out excuse for a woman that she’d been since the Damming.

* * *

**2024 C.E.**

“They volunteered, biscuit,” Magnus told her after a few months had passed. He wasn’t pleased with himself that it had taken so long, but the shock of feeling that many warlocks instantaneously snuffed out of existence, their magic simply...gone, had been immense. In the aftermath, he’d had to deal with the few who remained, some of whom were simply shocked, and others who were demented or catatonic. Including Catarina.

At last, though, his grief at the deaths of his friends and the obliteration of most of his species had numbed a little, making room for soul-searching and a more philosophical perspective.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Clary barely raised her voice above a whisper. The intense headaches she suffered since that cataclysmic endeavor meant that they all tried to be very quiet and gentle around her. It was one of the reasons Magnus hadn’t approached her for months; he knew his rage was unjust but it was still something he had to deal with before he could speak to her again.

The plan had been one of desperation, and they’d all known it would be a risk. They’d had no choice. The demonic incursion was going to be unstoppable if they delayed. The rifts couldn’t be sealed by any power of demonic origin; they had already tried that and failed. They had to use magic that had somehow been purified, and they needed colossal amounts of it.

Warlocks and shadowhunters had volunteered in droves to receive a rune that bound them into a collective. The shadowhunters’ angelic power would filter the demonic taint from the warlocks’ magic. Clary would channel that massive river of energy into Magnus, who would use it to cast the spell that would seal the breach.

Their roles had made sense at the time. Magnus was the most powerful warlock and Clary’s runic power was what would bind them all together. But their position at the apex of the whole thing had somehow shielded them from the worst of it--a fact that they would spend years remonstrating themselves for.

What had Clary felt in those seconds before the magic had rebounded, like a rubber band snapping with apocalyptic force? Magnus knew what _he_ had felt. He’d been connected to all of them, felt the whisperings of hundreds of different personalities in his mind. In those seconds, the grace of angels had burned against the demon blood in his veins, and he felt that same clash within each of them, the polarity amplified and fed back to him by every being in that collective.

Had it been the same for her? Was that what had her unable to recover from what had happened? Or was it simply guilt?

Magnus tried again, “They knew there were risks--”

“How could they?” Clary’s eyes flashed as she finally met his gaze, the contrast of her shockingly white hair making them somehow darker than they had ever been before. “I didn’t know, so I didn’t warn them. They never had a chance.”

Magnus placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, withdrawing it quickly when she flinched. “They knew it was untested. The specifics of the dangers are irrelevant. They knew there were no guarantees. They volunteered anyway.”

Clary’s lips curled in a sneer. “Yeah, well, I’m sure that was a huge comfort when their brains were liquefying in their skulls.”

She stalked away before he could respond, leaving him along with the memory of the carnage. Bodies all over the ground, runed corpses lying beside those bearing warlock marks. Horror-struck eyes red with ruptured capillaries, blood-tinged cerebrospinal fluid seeping from their noses and ears, mouths frozen in agonized rictuses.

The most powerful warlocks had been the closest to the apex, in order to amplify the magic they were channeling, and as such, they had been somewhat protected as Magnus had been. Somewhat. That was why Catarina had been left in a vegetative state rather than killed outright. That was why Magnus had let her linger for weeks, hoping she would recover, before he ended her suffering.

Magnus hadn’t tried to speak with Clary about it again.

* * *

**2186 C.E.**

“Oh, my God.” Simon gasped as their vessel began its approach of the Citadel docking bays. The rest of them were silent, staring in awe out the windows at the massive space station. “I mean, I know you explained that it was big but--but--”

“Think of the Wards--those five arms--as the five boroughs,” Magnus explained. “Each one houses a population roughly the size of Brooklyn back when we all lived there, for a total of over thirteen million residents.”

“Humanity’s last, best hope for peace?” Simon asked, something in his tone suggesting his words were a quote from some obscure bit of cinema or television.

“Hardly,” Isabelle corrected her ex. “According to the vids Magnus gave us, the asari were setting up a galactic government here several millennia before humanity discovered the wonders of the combustion engine. We’re the newcomers here.”

She said it with a good deal of satisfaction. Magnus suspected that it secretly tickled Isabelle that the most advanced and respected race in the galaxy was a monogendered species who looked--and referred to themselves as--feminine.

Simon grimaced. “Last, best hope for victory might be a better description, anyway. You read the briefing Dr. T’Soni put together on the Reapers?”

Isabelle propped her shoulder against the wall on the opposite side of the window from him, completely companionable. They’d had over a decade to settle into a comfortable friendship since they’d called off their wedding and decided they couldn’t make it work. Of course, neither of them appeared to be able to make it work with anyone else, either, or at least they hadn’t as of the time Magnus had left them behind to have the amulets created.

Jace spoke up, setting his stance with his feet apart and his arms folded over is chest, looking suitably grim. “Not sure exactly how guys with swords--and claws and teeth--” He nodded at Luke. “--are supposed to fight spaceships two kilometers long. I’m sure we can do some damage against their ground troops, these--what did she call them--husks? But they’re not the real problem.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes. “Can we get real here? Magnus didn’t bring us back for our seraph blades. He brought us back for Clary.”

“He wasn’t supposed to bring me back at all,” Clary said coldly from where she sat on the other side of the room, the only one of them not fascinated by the mammoth space station they were approaching. Her eyes flashed at Magnus, as her resentment animating her as much as she was ever animated since the Damming. “I only gave up the phial of blood and the memento because Jace begged me to, but I had no intention of them ever being used. Magnus, I _told_ you not to make an amulet for me.”

“Wait, _what_?” Simon stared at her, horrified. Beside him, Jace was equally agog. Apparently she hadn’t discussed her decision with either her husband or her parabatai.

Jace shook his head in disbelief. “Clary, you--” He clenched his jaw, his expression closing off. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She dropped her gaze to her hands, clenched in her lap. “I meant to. I probably did, after Magnus left. We just don’t remember that now. But the bottom line is, I’m not supposed to be here.”

Magnus lifted his chin under her accusing stare. “You’re right. I disregarded your wishes. I have no intention of apologizing. Any threat significant enough for me to use the amulets to bring you all back would be significant enough that--you’ll all pardon me--guys with seraph blades and fangs and claws weren’t going to cut it. We need your power, Clary.”

“Oh, because that always works out so well for everyone,” she sneered.

Magnus could see them all gearing up to comfort and coddle her as they always did, and interrupted before they could begin. “ _Yes_ , you killed hundreds in the Damming, Clary Fairchild. Is that what you want to hear? However well-intentioned you might have been, their blood is on your hands. But the reason it’s on your hands is because _you_ keep dipping them in it.”

A storm of protests erupted at that, and Magnus ignored them all. The only one who wasn’t outraged was Alec, and that was because he and Magnus had discussed this many times in their bed at night. Alec had even tried to speak to Jace about not indulging Clary’s gratuitous self-flagellation, but hadn’t gotten anywhere.

Clary glared at him and Magnus stared back impassively. “If that’s what you want to do, none of us can stop you, but we’re under no obligation to baby you along as you do it and I refuse to play this game any further.”

“Magnus, that’s enough,” Luke said as Jace started angrily toward him. Magnus flung up a hand without taking his eyes from Clary’s, freezing Jace mid-stride and ignore Luke.

He carried on, pelting her with pitiless words. “The other side of the story, is that you saved billions. _Billions_. The demon incursion would have killed all of humanity, so in the end, those hundreds of lives--even my dear Catarina’s--were a fair price to pay and not one of the people who volunteered and died that day would disagree.”

“ _I_ disagree,” she snarled.

“Your guilt is a luxury you can wallow in on your own time, shadowhunter.” She flinched, and Magnus wondered when the last time someone reminded her of her duty was. “Even disregarding the whole not-quite time-travel thing, it’s been over a decade and that’s quite long enough for you to pull yourself together. At this point the hairshirt is starting to smell and frankly it was _never_ a good look on you. So take it off, because there are literally trillions of lives at stake now.”

“He’s got a point, Clary,” Isabelle said softly. “You know we love you, and you know we understand how terrible you feel for what happened. But you couldn’t have known. It wasn’t your fault, and it’s time to move on. We need you.”

Clary’s eyes flashed with tears as she looked from face to face, seeking one that would reaffirm her self-condemnation, and finding nothing. She rushed from the room and Magnus let his spell drop so her husband could chase after her.

“Harsh,” Luke said darkly. “I get where you’re coming from, man, but I still want to kick your ass.”

“Someone had to say it,” Alec replied, coming to stand beside Magnus, body language stating quite bluntly that anyone who wanted to come after Magnus would have to get through him first. “We should have said it years ago.”

“Did she ever recover?” Simon ask, ducking his head sadly. “I mean, not that you were there, but if we left behind any information--”

Magnus made his face as blank as he possibly could. He could still remember, word for word, the letter in which Alec described how disconsolate Jace was after Clary took her own life.

“I have no idea,” he lied, and gestured out the window to where the docking tube was reaching toward their vessel as they came to a stop. “Come. Let me show you your new home.”

* * *

Silversun Strip bustled as energetically as Times Square ever had, which made Magnus’s New York born-and-bred companions feel right at home, even if they were somewhat dazed at seeing that sort of activity on a space station. But by the time their sky taxis settled at the transit stand outside his apartment building, they seemed to be getting a grasp on the rhythm of the place.

He wasn’t often away for days at a time, but he’d made sure his cat’s food and water would magically refill. Nonetheless, as soon as the doors of his apartment swished open, a familiar, purring form rushed out to greet him.

“Ahh, here she is!” He scooped the cat up and rubbed her face with his. “Fish, let me introduce you to my friends.”

Simon’s lips twitched. “You named your cat Fish?”

Magnus waved his hand dismissively. “There was some ridiculous restriction about companion animals on the Citadel and the distribution of station resources. They said the largest pet I could get a permit for was a fish. So naturally, being a law-abiding citizen, I complied. Or so it appeared to the customs agent, who thankfully couldn’t see through the glamour I cast on her.”

Liara smiled wryly. “Of course. Why edit the permits magically the way you manage all your other paperwork when you can simply give your cat an absurd name? Now, if you’re going to be settling in here, I’ll go check in with Feron and see what I need to take care of.”

Simon stared appreciatively after her as she left. “Is she single?”

Isabelle snickered and exchanged a grin with him. “I was wondering that myself.”

“I suspect in her heart she’s spoken for,” Magnus said with gentle amusement. “Now, I only have three bedrooms, but there’s a study I can magic some cots into while we’re on the waiting list for another apartment. This building is one that a lot of diplomats and business people take short-term rentals in while they’re on the Citadel temporarily, so there’s a high turnover. Most residents can’t afford the rent. This is Zakera Ward’s equivalent of midtown Manhattan.”

“Not Brooklyn?” Alec asked, meeting Magnus’s eyes. He knew better than anyone why Magnus had styled himself the High Warlock of Brooklyn rather than Manhattan. Despite his wealth, Magnus was happier in more down-to-earth surroundings.

“The waiting list on apartments in lower-rent parts of the ward is much, much longer,” Magnus said with some regret. “I suppose I could have cheated and moved my name to the top, but I couldn’t bear to deprive someone who was genuinely in need. Let me show you to your rooms.”

Unsurprisingly, Clary had a headache and once settled in her room, declined to leave it again. Magnus knew better than to offer to take the pain away.

When the door shut behind her, Jace swung around abruptly to face Magnus. “If you _ever_ speak to her like that again--”

“Back off, Jace,” Alec interrupted, but Magnus held up a hand to stop him.

“Don’t threaten me, shadowhunter,” Magnus said with cold amusement. “I said nothing that you shouldn’t have been saying to her for years. This has gone on long enough. I could help with her pain, but she refuses. She uses it to punish herself, and the way you coddle her does more harm than good. If not for the Reaper threat, I’d simply caution you that if you don’t stop, you’re going to lose her, and I’d leave it at that. But since we _are_ faced with the Reaper threat, I’ll go one further and say that we don’t have time to indulge her any longer. I don’t care how you accomplish it, but do your job and make sure she does hers.”

He walked away before Jace could muster up any more bluster, and Alec quickly caught up, overtaking him with his long strides.

“I see you’re as diplomatic as ever,” he observed, the fond amusement in his tone so familiar that it made Magnus ache. It was the tone he’d once used just before he’d grab Magnus and kiss him until neither of them could breathe, because it was the only way he could express his delight at Magnus’s deliberate occasional lack of tact.

“And I see you’re as stalwart and loyal as ever,” Magnus said, trying to quash the pang in his chest. Alec followed him into his bedroom and closed the door behind them. “I’m sorry if you find yourself caught between me and your parabatai in this, but--”

“But nothing.” Alec laid a hand on the side of Magnus’s face, his tone gentle and his eyes glowing with adoration. “You’re right. We all know it, even Jace. He just doesn’t know what to _do_ about it. I’m proud of you for finally saying it.”

He should step back. Put some space between them. Clutch his determination not to fall back into his love for Alec and erect some walls here. But Alec’s hand on his cheek arrested Magnus, freezing him in place as surely as the spell he’d cast on Jace earlier, and Magnus didn’t have the strength--or the will--to pull away.

Alec’s mouth on his was gentle, questioning, mindful of Magnus’s reserve even if he didn’t know the full reason for it. Offering Magnus every opportunity to stop if he wished, and Magnus knew he _should_.

But the taste and feel of Alec was just too dear. It called to too many things inside him that wanted little to do with wisdom and caution.

Where Alec was concerned, knowing what he _should_ do had never been something with much power to compel Magnus.

His hands slipped up the back of Alec’s shirt, his lips parted, and he lost himself in something he hadn’t had for more than a century. Warm skin under his fingertips. Soft breath gusting on his face. Gentle fingers in his hair cradling his skull like something precious. And a hard body pressed against his, growing harder.

“Magnus…” Alec drew back long enough to whisper his name, but whatever he’d intended to say clearly failed him, and he dove back in for another kiss, this one far more hungry. Magnus felt himself being steered toward the bed, and somewhere in the back of his head, a warning bell sounded, but he couldn’t imagine why he should heed it. The mattress hit the back of his knees…

...and someone rapped gently on the bedroom door.

“Magnus?” Isabelle called. “Liara is here. She says she needs to speak to you right away.”

Alec groaned softly as they broke apart. “Damn it. A hundred and fifty years, you’d think maybe we’d earned the right to not be interrupted.”

_A hundred and fifty years_. All the reasons why Magnus had been determined he couldn’t do exactly what they’d been doing came rushing back. He stepped away from Alec quickly, reining in all those parts that were drawn to Alec like magnets to true north.

“Yes, well, we shouldn’t keep her waiting. Fate of the galaxy and all that.” He bustled out the door, his lips still tingling from the rub of Alec’s stubble. He hadn’t even reached the top of the stairs before Alec caught his arm.

“Magnus--”

“I _can’t_ , Alexander,” he said, his voice tight with desperation. “Please understand. I can’t. Not yet. I don’t know when, or even _if_ \--I just don’t know. But definitely not yet.”

He rushed down the stairs before Alec could protest again, startling Liara and the others with the sight of him all but running away from his beloved.

Thankfully, Liara recovered quickly and gracefully. “Magnus, I’ve just gotten off a call with Admiral Hackett. He commands the human Alliance’s Fifth Fleet and is their highest ranking admiral in space. While the Citadel Council and the Council races still don’t officially believe Commander Shepard about the Reaper threat, unofficially, certain parties in Alliance command are determined to try to prepare for the Reapers nonetheless, and Admiral Hackett has requested my help.”

Magnus gestured to a chair and Liara took a seat while he sat on the sofa, stroking Fish as she came to occupy his lap. “You’re leaving, then?” he asked.

“Yes, but I thought you might wish to come with me. I’m going to the Mars Archives.”

“You mentioned those in the brief you gave us. They’re the Prothean ruins discovered almost forty years ago, right?” Isabelle asked, leaning against the bar dividing the living room and kitchen.

Liara nodded. “Yes. Their discovery led to humans figuring out how to activate the Sol relay and helped them acquire mass effect technology and the ability to jump instantaneously between star systems.”

Simon chuckled. “Charon. You gotta love that we had a mass relay orbiting Pluto for eons and we all just assumed it was a moon because it was encased in ice.”

“This Admiral Hackett believes you’ll find something on Mars?” Alec asked, pulling the conversation back on track.

“Yes. The fact is, once the Alliance uncovered the secret of interstellar travel, they lost interest in digging any deeper into the Prothean data troves there. And the Council races have assumed there’s not much else those archives can teach us. Research has been...less than aggressive in the decades since Earth joined the galactic community.” Liara sighed wistfully. “I once attempted to get a permit to conduct my own excavations and see if there was more hidden in the ruins, but at the time I was less than a century old, which in asari terms means I was quite young and my research and theories weren’t taken very seriously, so it was declined. But I’m certain there’s more to be learned from the archives. Perhaps even something that gives us more insight into the Prothean war against the Reapers. And now, with this new insight into the nature of the Reapers--”

“You want me along in case you uncover any information about the demonic energy the Reapers emanate,” Magnus concluded.

“Precisely. There’s been little information uncovered about Prothean religion or mythology. Did they believe in such things? Were they even aware of the Reapers demonic origins?”

“Those are good questions,” Alec nodded. “Izzy and I should go with you, too. Izzy’s the scientist after all, and I’m the closest we have to a linguist or historian.”

Isabelle snorted. “I studied biology and shadow-world forensics. I think whatever’s on Mars is going to be a little outside my field. But I’ll do what I can.”

“I’ll use my resources to get you added to the permit as part of my research team,” Liara agreed. “It’ll be quite an on-the-job orientation but perhaps that’s best for getting you caught up with current events.”

“Wait. Who’s going where and doing what?” Jace asked, appearing at the top of the stairs. Clary was nowhere in sight.

“Izzy and I are accompanying Magnus and Dr. T’Soni to the Prothean archives on Mars to see if we can find out anything more about the demonic aspect of the Reaper threat,” Alec explained. “In the meantime, you, Simon and Luke can continue orienting yourselves to life here in the 22nd century."

“I'll have my agent Feron stay with them and show them around,” Liara offered.

Alec nodded gratefully. “Thank you. Jace, I also want you to put together a training regimen for Clary. We need her back in fighting form.”

“You want _what_?” Jace stared at Alec in disbelief. “Clary’s in no shape--”

“Then _get_ her in shape,” Alec snapped. “Magnus is right. This has gone on too long. So as soon as this meeting is over, providing he's willing, I’m sending him to help with her headaches and no, she does not have the option of refusing. I’m the ranking shadowhunter here, and I’m giving you your assignments. Clary has a duty. We all do. So have her on her feet and ready to fight by the time we get back. That’s an order.”

Alec met their eyes, one after the other, until he got a nod of acknowledgment. He held Magnus’s gaze last and longest, and in that shared look Magnus read the silent promise that they weren’t done discussing what still lingered between them.

Finally Magnus nodded as well, and excused himself to deal with Clary.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec, Magnus, Izzy, and Simon help Liara with her research on Mars, but time has run out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating. my brain got consumed by my [arranged marriage AU](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10821942) and I needed time to do some brainstorming of where the plot needs to go.
> 
> Still unbeta'ed, sorry.

“This is incredible,” Izzy murmured for the fifth time as she scrolled through the files Dr. T’Soni had given her on the physiology of the Protheans that were gleaned from the deactivated stasis pods on Ilos, and more recent information collated by another associate of Shepard, a Dr. Mordin Solus, dealing with the race known as the Collectors. Who, it turned out, were the surviving remnants of the Prothean race after they’d been altered by the Reapers. “I’m seeing some of the same sort of mutations we saw in victims of Valentine’s demon-blood experiments on Downworlders, but the Reapers do it with cybernetics? It’s a little like trying to analyze a Monet after spending your life studying a three-year-old’s crayon drawings.”

“And back on Earth, Valentine Morganstern just rolled in his grave at that comparison,” Magnus chortled.

“But you’re definitely seeing demon genetics at play?” Alec prompted.

Izzy bit her lip, sweeping her hair back from her face. “...Yes?”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I’m seeing genetic structures that ‘look’ demonic in the same way that asari genetics might ‘look’ human by virtue of the fact that both races have certain traits in common, like two eyes and five digits at the end of each arm and leg.” She frowned and rubbed her eyes. “Even as varied as demon species appeared back in our time on Earth, they were as similar to one another genetically as different ethnicities of humans are. Occasionally one breed of demon--for instance, shax--might vary enough to be considered the demonic equivalent of an orangutan or great ape.”

“You’re losing me,” Alec muttered. “Translate for those of us who didn’t have the equivalent of two doctorates by the time they were twenty?”

Izzy gave him an irritable look. “My point is, whatever caused the alterations that made humans into husks and Protheans into Collectors is as alien compared to the demons I studied as an asari is to a human. The only reason I have to believe the genetics are demonic at all is that Magnus established there’s demonic energy at work.” She turned her back on the workstation she’d been glued to for weeks. “What about you? Anything in the Prothean writings?”

“Going from the translated writings, no. Until I can study the original language, that’s all I have to go on.” Alec’s affinity for linguistics was coming in handy as he tried to get a grasp on Prothean, but even he couldn’t pick it up quickly enough for them to find anything usable in the Mars archives in the finite time they had available. “The problem is, the Prothean records seem to have...gaps. Almost as though something was meant to supplement the language. It’s like trying to learn to read when you only know half the alphabet.”

Dr. T’Soni nodded. “I’ve often thought the same thing myself, and other archeologists concur. It could be they communicated via bioluminescence like the hanar, or using pheromones like the elcor, or really there are any number of other explanations.”

“And you have nothing that might help?” Alec asked.

She frowned thoughtfully. “Shepard might be able to interpret it. I’ve been in contact with Admiral Hackett to see if her state of incarceration might still permit her to look over some of these records and see if the Prothean cipher in her mind might be the missing piece; on Ilos she was able to understand a Prothean message even though she’s never studied the language.”

“I still don’t get this cipher thing,” Simon remarked. How he’d managed to talk his way into accompanying them to Mars instead of staying on the Citadel--or why he’d even wanted to, when the Citadel was a geeky time-traveler’s playground--Alec had no idea. Perhaps he was hoping they might get a glimpse of Earth? But Izzy had agreed it was better for Simon to come along, so here he was. For the most part, they’d been using him as a sort of catch-all assistant and gopher. “Commander Shepard can actually _think_ like a Prothean?”

Dr. T’Soni sighed--a bit enviously, in Alec’s opinion. “For the most part. There were still some issues with understanding the message she received from the Prothean beacons on Eden Prime and Virmire, but she might be a resource for filling in these ‘gaps’ if we can’t find it ourselves.”

“Yeah, but how do we explain what we’re looking for without explaining the whole demon thing?” Alec asked doubtfully. Thanks to Dr. T’Soni’s unnamed _resources_ \--she was remarkably versatile and well-connected for a mere archeologist--the four of them had the credentials required to access the Mars archives. Operating discreetly amongst mundanes wasn’t anything unusual for them as Shadowhunters, and Dr. T’Soni’s “team” was on the books as a special research initiative commissioned by Admiral Hackett, so most of the other researchers at the Mars Archives left them to their own devices. Thus far there had been no issues with them accidentally revealing anything about themselves or their odd time-shifted status. But this Commander Shepard person was something else entirely.

“It hadn’t occurred to me not to explain what Magnus discovered regarding the fragment of _Sovereign_ he has in his possession,” Dr. T’Soni replied. “I wouldn’t keep something like this from her.”

“But what if she doesn’t believe you?” Simon asked. “I mean, I remember my initial reaction when I was a mundane trying to wrap my head around all this. Do we have time to deal with that sort of skepticism?”

“It may be a moot point,” Magnus said with a shrug, turning away from the table where he’d been inspecting the most recent array of artifacts uncovered. “So far, nothing we’ve discovered has indicated that the Protheans had any knowledge of the Reapers demonic energy. Or if they were aware of it, they attributed it to some other, less fantastical cause.”

Izzy hummed, leaning back in her chair. “You know, I have to wonder,” she mused. “If demons operate on a galactic scale--and clearly we now have evidence of that--do the angels, also? Are angels, to use the oversimplification Magnus used to explain demons to Liara--simply another form of alien, just interdimensional instead of interstellar? Or are they still the semi-divine beings we always believed them to be?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Simon smirked. “See, they’re actually Vorlons.”

Dr. T’Soni frowned. “Vorlons? I’ve never heard of--” She broke off when Izzy smacked Simon lightly on the back of the head.

“That’s enough,” Alec said, giving them both a stern look. “Simon, I still have no idea what you thought you could contribute here, so don’t make me rethink bringing you along.”

Simon grimaced. “It’s not so much what I can do here as what I _can’t_ do there,” he muttered, hanging his head. Alec stared until Simon picked up on the cue to keep explaining. “I’m just saying, Jocelyn always had to send me home before she disciplined Clary when we were kids. So, it’s probably best that I’m not there if Jace and Luke have to go all ‘tough love’ on her. Like, I totally get why you left the orders you did, but she’ll get sad and give me the puppy eyes and then I’ll just get in the way trying to defend her and that won’t do any of us any good.”

Alec’s eyebrows snapped upward. “Oh. Good call, then.” He cleared his throat and turned back to his own workstation.

“Why does he always sound so surprised when I do something right?” he heard Simon grumble to Izzy, but ignored it.

He also ignored Magnus’s increasingly restless study of the artifacts they had checked out from the vault. He’d already examined them both physically and magically several times in the weeks that they’d been here, and had even received a couple uncomfortable jolts when Magnus turned and touched him on the arm without letting the spell dissipate from his hands first. That sort of sloppy control of his magic was so unlike him that Alec had to wonder just what Magnus had been doing with himself for the last century and change.

“Out of curiosity,” Izzy asked. “What’s it like not being on the same planet as your _parabatai_?”

“ _Weird_ ,” Alec and Simon answered in emphatic unison. Their eyes met briefly, then quickly away, determined never to acknowledge they’d shared the same thought.

“I can’t feel Clary like I normally can,” he explained while Alec tried to refocus on his files. “But at the same time, I can still feel her more than I could before we were _parabatai_ , so it’s not like she’s dead or anything?”

“ _Parabatai_?” Dr. T’Soni asked carefully. Since leaving the Citadel they had been steadily filling in the gaps of any information Magnus might not have been able to provide her about Shadowhunter history and society, but she still was tentative in her inquiries, respecting that some parts of their culture might not be for outside consumption.

Not that they really had a culture or society any more.

“Plantonic life partner,” Simon answered, smiling. “It’s a whole, big, blood-brother, lifelong-warrior-soul-bond type thing. You fight better, together, can find each other more easily, sometimes even share each other’s emotions or state of mind. It’s really cool. You know, once you get used to it.”

Dr. T’Soni leaned forward, her attitude shifting into that eager-to-learn mode she sometimes got. “It’s a difficult adjustment?”

“Well, I don’t know about others, but for me? Oh, yeah. Let me tell you, even though I grew up with a mother and sister and I was friends with Clary my whole life, I was _not_ prepared for PMS. Ow!” He rubbed the back of his head where Izzy had smacked him again. “I’m just saying.”

Alec rolled his eyes. “Can we get back to work please?”

Work was steadily becoming focused on a blueprint of sorts that Dr. T’Soni had discovered in the archives. They were still analyzing the data--which, of course, would be easier if they had a complete grasp of the language--but it appeared to plans for a massive weapon and it had been found in a portion of the archive that dealt with the Prothean war against the Reapers.

“Actually I need to get to a meeting,” Dr. T’Soni said, rising. “The leaders of each separate research team gather periodically to discuss any information the others might find relevant. But I’ve got to skirt around the subject of the Prothean device, since Admiral Hackett wants me to keep any findings classified. I’ll be back soon.”

As she departed, they hunkered down at their workstations again, but when Alec turned back to his, caught Magnus staring at him from the corner of his eye. Magnus looked away quickly, as he’d done every time Alec had tried to make eye contact longer than a few seconds since they’d left the Citadel.

He’d had no real opportunity to speak to Magnus alone since they’d arrived on Mars, either. The scientists at the Mars archives bunked in eight-person dormitories. The five of them on Dr. T’Soni’s “team” had a room to themselves, since they were a single research team, but there was still no privacy and no opportunity for him and Magnus to work on re-establishing some familiarity with each other. Or rather, Magnus’s familiarity with Alec.

And Magnus seemed intent on avoiding the issue altogether.

Izzy pushed back from her terminal. “Alec, I need something from our dorm. Take a walk with me, big brother?” 

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered, putting his workstation on standby. It sounded like a better proposition than staying and getting the cold shoulder from Magnus, at any rate.

Unfortunately Izzy homed right in on the issue with her unerring perception.

“What’s going on with you and Magnus?” She asked bluntly as they made their way through the series of airlocks that kept each module of the Mars archives insulated from the others in case of a loss of atmosphere.

“Absolutely nothing,” Alec replied with far more meaning than he’d meant to imbue his answer with.

Izzy made a disgruntled sound. “Yeah, I noticed. You know, I get that a dormitory isn’t exactly the place to rekindle the flame of a 150-year separation, but this seems a little strange. He’s not being very...Magnus-like, is he?”

“I agree, but what exactly makes you say that?”

Two other scientists joined them in the lift and they fell silent for a while, until the pair got off and headed in the direction of the commissary. Once they were out of earshot, Izzy said, “Half the time he watches you like he wants to eat you alive and the other half, he looks like he’s expecting you to grow another head. And he’s too damn _quiet_. No way would the Magnus you were with for almost twenty years barely speak a word while we’re all bantering like we were in there.”

“He did say he say he worried he’d changed too much since we were together, and that’s why he didn’t want to pick up where we left off? I don’t know why he’d be this different, though, or why he’d think we weren’t still compatible even if he had changed. I-I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense to me.” Izzy keyed open the door to their room and Alec followed her inside, then slumped against the wall, groaning. “I have to keep my head in the game. There isn’t time to hash all this out. I just have to wait until he’s ready to tell me what’s really going on.”

“You think he’s hiding something?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Well, listen, maybe I can clear everyone out to go eat lunch and you can--”

The air pressure in the cramped dormitory shifted, making Alec’s eardrums pop, and suddenly Magnus and Simon were there in the cramped dormitory with them. Simon looked even more peaked than usual after portaling, and Magnus’s face was grim.

“It’s happening,” Simon rasped as he used his omnitool--which he’d taken to using far better than the rest of them--to activate the vid display on the wall. “It’s really happening.”

“Oh, God,” Izzy breathed, the color draining from her face as well as before them, ships that dwarfed any skyscraper began touching down in New York, Tokyo, Vancouver, London. Beams of incomprehensible energy shot from the ships, demolishing buildings. Within those structures, no doubt thousands of people were dying, and they’d only been watching a few seconds.

Alec’s mind raced, trying to comprehend the level of destruction they were witnessing and the fact that it was happening on the world they’d defended their whole lives. “Oh, _hell_. I thought we’d have more time.”

“Time for what?” Simon demanded, an edge of hysteria creeping into his voice. “They’re all over the planet. There must be thousands of people dying each minute. How do you prepare for _that_?”

“I don’t know!” Alec snapped as the video feed cut out, filling the display with static.

Simon desperately tried to find another frequency, but they were all blank. “They’ve cut off all signals from Earth.”

A moment later, Magnus’s omnitool chimed. “Magnus?” Liara’s voice inquired.

“We saw,” he replied tersely. “Communications have been cut off from Earth now?”

“Yes. I was on a call with Admiral Hackett when the news came through. He’s going to send a ship to extract us before the Alliance loses control of the Sol system. Where are you?”

“The dormitory. We portaled there to watch the news.”

Dr. T’Soni’s sigh of relief was audible. “Stay there. Lock the door, use your glamors to hide if you have to.” Some bustle of activity cut her off, then she pitched her voice low and said, “Magnus, something is going on here and I don’t know what. I’m hearing weapons fire, but as far as anyone knows the Reapers haven’t touched down on Mars yet.”

“Who would be attacking now?” Alec demanded.

“If I had to guess, I’d say Cerberus. I’ve been receiving reports for the past couple weeks that they’re showing a great deal of interest in Prothean ruins. They could be taking advantage of the Reaper attack to seize the data from the archives.” Another flurry of motion and static, and then, “...making my way to you, but...jamming comms...a dust storm. I’m heading…vehicle bay…secure a rover…away from the main facility until…transport arrives...get into your suits and pack up...be ready to portal us to the archives...”

“We’ll be ready,” Magnus assured her and cut off the call.

“What, we’re going to hide here while people are dying out there?” Izzy asked incredulously.

Magnus’s jaw flexed, but he gritted, “There’s only so much we can do against people using military grade guns, and we can’t venture far or we’ll miss meeting up with Liara.”

Simon shook his head. “Yeah, but--”

“He’s right,” Alec said tightly. “We’re the only people who know how to fight demons. If we die here, we can’t lend our knowledge to the people fighting the Reapers. We can either go out there to take on whoever is attacking with weapons we’re not qualified to fight against and fail at saving a handful of people, or we can live to use our expertise in the war effort in order to save trillions.”

Izzy sank down onto one of the bunks, closing her eyes. “God. Now I know why Clary is such a mess.”

“Get suited up and start packing. If you have a choice between clothes and files, choose the files,” Alec commanded, grabbing the one gun they had in the room with them. Liara had taught him how to shoot it, since he had the best aim. Both Izzy and Simon looked ill, but they obeyed as Alec checked the thermal clip. “Once we’re extracted, we all start training with guns, and we start looking at ways to alter them. Runes make them inoperable, but maybe we can work adamas or electrum into the ammunition to weaken the demonic energy powering the Reapers, or...I don’t know. We’ll find something.”

The next hour passed slowly, anxiety creeping steadily in as they waited for Dr. T’Soni. She checked in once, assuring them she was still on the way, but that she had to sneak around trying to avoid what she had now confirmed to be Cerberus forces.

“Who are these Cerberus guys?” Simon asked, pacing between the bunks.

Magnus made a disgusted sound. “They became infamous since the First Contact War against the Turians for being a xenophobic terrorist organization with an ‘Earth First’ mandate. I’ve made an effort to stay off their radar, because they would view me as either an abomination or an asset, and both would be equally bad. The same would apply to Shadowhunters, I think. Let us hope they decide the dormitories are uninhabited at this time of day and pass us by.”

His omnitool chimed again and Dr. T’Soni’s face appeared on the holo, though static and noise kept disrupting the signal, as it had every other time she’d made contact. “Magnus, tell everyone...helmets on. We...cafeteria...Cerberus...venting the atmosphere...unsuited civilians. We’re--”

Her voice cut off suddenly, but they were already in motion, securing the breather helmets of the armored, temperature controlled and radiation shielded suits that were mandatory gear for anyone working in the Mars facility.

“What did she mean ‘we’?” Izzy asked, her voice strange and raspy through the suit intercom.

“Maybe she’s got other scientists with her?” Simon proposed with a shrug. “She might--”

“Be quiet!” Alec snapped, trying to listen for noises outside their room under their voices, his own echoing breath inside the helmet, and the pounding of his pulse in his ears. The gun--never something he was entirely comfortable with--felt even stranger and clumsier in his gloved hands, despite all the servos and sensors built into the suit to provide maximum control and accuracy.

Within moments, alarms announced the depressurization of the building, and an automated recording cautioned everyone to grab an oxygen mask from the nearest emergency station.

“Magnus, can you make a peephole in the wall?” Alec asked when the alarm cut out. “We’re not going to be able to hear anyone coming if there’s no atmosphere.”

“With gloves on? Sure, why not?” The magic the glowed around Magnus’s fingers seemed spluttering and weak, and over the intercom, Alec heard him muttering the spell aloud--not something he often needed to do for so casual a bit of magic. He might have remarked that they were both suffering the same difficulty with regard to the gloves, if he weren’t straining his ears trying to listen for noises in the corridor outside.

They waited in eerie silence until four figures in white and yellow armor came into view. Magnus quickly closed the peephole and they all moved to press back against the walls, where anyone walking into the room would be less likely to brush against them and disrupt the glamor that made them invisible to mundanes.

Without prompting, Simon began punching at his omnitool, trying to hack into their communications frequency. He shared the signal with them all as the Cerberus forces began blowing doors open one after another.

“ _Search every room. The VI reported at least four life signs on this level of the building_.”

“Oh, shit,” Izzy muttered.

“Our glamor doesn’t protect us against scanners?” Simon asked, sounding insulted. “That’s probably something we should have--”

“Shut. _Up_.” Alec hissed, then flinched as their door was blasted inward.

He stood motionless, only his finger tightening on the trigger as a single pair of Cerberus troops drawn guns swept wide but thankfully bulletless arcs before them. Gradually their guns lowered.

“ _It’s empty_ ,” one of them reported to the other pair, who were no doubt searching other rooms.

“It can’t be. That’s the last room; they have to be here somewhere. Switch to infrared; they may have holographic tactical cloaks--”

“ _Hell_ ,” Alec growled as one of the pair raised the omnitool on his wrist. He fired, but their suits kinetic shielding stopped and detonated the bullets before they ever made contact. Magnus’s shouted spell knocked the Cerberus troops off their feet as Izzy and Simon charged forward. Their blades ignored kinetic shielding and drove through the Cerberus armor, which--much like Kevlar--hadn’t been designed to withstand stabbing damage. The other pair of troops came charging down the corridor and through the door. Magnus’s next spell slammed them into the wall and dropped them, dazed and groaning, to the floor, where Simon and Izzy finished them off.

“What was that about guys with guns versus guys with blades?” Simon asked with a smirk.

“Close quarters,” Izzy replied, sparing Alec the trouble. “That would never work on an open battlefield. They’d gun us down before we ever got close enough.”

“But not if they can’t see us,” Simon argued.

Alec bit back the urge to snap again kept his voice level. “Our glamors don’t work on infrared sensors. Sooner or later they’d get wise to that. We need to--” He broke off as the vents began hissing again and the onboard computers of their suits informed them that exterior air pressure was being restored.

“Liara must have made it,” Magnus murmured, twisting his helmet to break the magnetic seal. Alec did the same, taking a few deep breaths of air that seemed somehow freshed even if it was recycled the same way the oxygen in their suits was.

As they waited for Dr. T’Soni to arrive, Alec and Izzy stripped the Cerberus forces of their weapons. Izzy gasped and he turned to see her removing the helmet on one of the corpses. The dead, open eyes glowed, and lines of what looked like cybernetic implants formed dark runnels through their skin.

“What the hell is that?” Simon asked, his voice strangled as Alec squatted down next to Izzy to get a closer look. Before he could answer, though, the doors to the lift down the corridor slid open and Dr. T’Soni emerged with two other people wearing Alliance armor.

“Magnus! Thank the Goddess you’re all safe. We got here as quickly as we could, but Cerberus resistance is heavy.” She grimaced, her voice dropping to a tense snarl. “They had inside help.”

“Care to introduce us?” said the woman who accompanied her. She was tall enough to dwarf Dr. T’Soni and Izzy, possibly taller than any of them except Alec himself. One long scar dragged down the side of her face and she had a tense, world-weary look that Alec knew too well. He’d worn it himself, running the New York Institute during that final, seemingly-hopeless demon invasion.

“Of course.” Dr. T’Soni said sheepishly. “Please, allow me to introduce Commander Gabrielle Shepard and Major Kaidan Alenko from the Alliance. Shepard, Kaidan, these are Magnus Bane, Alec Lightwood, Isabelle Lightwood, and Simon Lovelace. They’re my...research team, and they have specialized information about the Reapers that may be helpful.”

“What sort of knowledge?” Shepard demanded, narrowing her eyes at them.

“The sort we don’t have time to get into right now,” Magnus replied. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, but let’s cut the introductions short and work on getting off the planet, shall we?”

“Maybe Commander Shepard should take a look at this before we go,” Izzy said, still kneeling by the body of the Cerberus trooper they had killed.

Both Shepard and Major Alenko glanced over in unison and jerked in surprise.

“My God,” Alenko murmured. “He looks like a husk.”

“Not quite.” Shepard approached for a closer look. “But he’s definitely been...engineered somehow.”

“Cerberus is doing this to their own people?” He asked incredulously. “Is that what they did to _you_?”

Alec jerked, his hand moving toward his gun instinctively. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Izzy and Simon’s heads shoot up. Only Magnus seemed nonplussed to learn that Commander Shepard was with Cerberus.

“How can you ask me that?” Shepard snapped. Magnus quickly turned and moved away from the pair of them, busying himself with gathering their packs. Alec did likewise, and after a moment Izzy and Simon followed suit. Even Dr. T’Soni folded her arms across her chest turned her back to the arguing pair.

“How do I know you’re not being controlled by the Illusive Man himself?” Alenko demanded, though Alec was trying not to listen.

“Dammit, Kaidan, you think I never asked myself that same question?” The sound of Shepard’s boots stomping away, out into the corridor, announced she’d taken the fight outside. Not far enough, however, to avoid Alec overhearing the rest of it. “You think that question didn’t haunt me for months after they brought me back? I had no idea what they might have done to me, if I was still me or if I was just some elaborate VI programmed to think I was me?”

Izzy and Simon shared uncomfortable glances, and Alec felt something hollow and nauseating start to take root in his gut.

Out in the hall, Shepard’s rant was picking up steam. “And the person who I thought knew me best--the _only_ person I’d allowed myself to get close to since I got off the streets--wasn’t there to keep an eye on me or notice if something wasn’t right. You just walked away, Kaidan. I needed you and _you walked away_. So you don’t get to demand answers of me, and I don’t give a _damn_ about your suspicions anymore. Keep it to yourself.”

Whatever Alenko answered, Alec didn’t hear it. He was too busy staring at Magnus, who refused to meet his eyes.

Shepard strode back into the room, her chin raised at a stubborn angle that reminded Alec of Lydia Branwell, of all people. “Liara, how do we get to the archives from here?”

“Magnus will get us there. I’m going to need to ask for your trust for a while longer. Magnus?”

“Of course.” Magnus stripped off his gloves and amber magic glowed around his fingers. The wall rippled and blurred.

“What the hell is that?” Alenko asked, sharing an alarmed glance with Shepard.

“It’s a portal. There’s no time to explain. Please, just trust me?” Dr. T’Soni entreated. “Follow me. It will take us directly to the archives.”

Liara stepped through the portal, leaving them blinking in astonishment. Shepard gritted her teeth and followed with Alenko on her heels. Izzy and Simon followed, but Alec took a moment to give Magnus a hard stare.

“So that’s why? You’re not sure I’m me?”

Magnus opened and closed his mouth once, twice. He gave Alec a pained look. “There’s no time, Alexander.”

Alec shook his head. “We’re not done with this,” he growled, and stepped through the portal.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have an update schedule, yet. I'm still looking for a beta reader to brainstorm some plot points with.
> 
> Find me at [maleccrazedauthor.tumblr.com](http://maleccrazedauthor.tumblr.com).


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